Syria's Secret Library

by Mike Thomson

  On the day I spoke to him, there was a two-day window for people to leave Daraya. Muhammad had had a busy morning, making arrangements for the evacuation, telling everyone what to do next and where to go. Even the ever-organised Muhammad wasn’t sure of all the details, but knowing that the regime’s soldiers would search their bags, he advised people to only take the things they absolutely needed or were most precious to them. Deciding what fell into the latter bracket after what for some had been a lifetime in the house they were leaving, would not be easy. Though for those whose homes had been badly damaged or destroyed there were fewer choices to make. After making a special pilgrimage to the town’s cemetery to say farewell to the many friends buried there during the long siege, Muhammad headed for the evacuation point. He would be boarding a bus bound for Idlib, where the fighters and their families were going, rather than joining most civilians in the west Damascus countryside. Although not a fighter in a military sense, he wished to continue his non-violent battle against the Assad regime from the country’s last remaining rebel-held province. Besides, he believed that if he set foot in a government-controlled area, he would probably be arrested because of his outspoken support for the uprising.

  One thing that lifted the heavy hearts of all in Daraya, was the absence of bombs, shells and sniper fire. For the first time in many months there were no explosions, cracks of rifle shots, no hovering helicopters, no screams as barrel bombs fell from the skies. The guns had fallen silent forty-eight hours before the evacuation process got underway, in order to allow government negotiators to come into what was left of the rebel-held town and discuss terms.

  Anas was amongst the crowds, doing his best to find out more about the details of the evacuation agreement, and what he and others would be able to take with them. With help from Muhammad, I managed to get hold of him. Though outwardly calm, Anas was clearly struggling to come to terms with the speed of events. ‘Forty-eight hours is very little time to pack up and leave somewhere you have lived all your life. I found it almost impossible to decide what to put in my suitcase. Everything held memories of my twenty-eight years in the town. It was very difficult.

  ‘All those memories are so precious,’ Anas continued, ‘it is almost impossible to decide which things are more valuable than others. Should I prioritise souvenirs from my childhood, those with my family or the ones with my friends?’ He concluded, sounding increasingly bereft, ‘I will just have to carry most of my memories in my head. That way nobody can take them from me or destroy them.’

  Anas seemed in a complete state of shock. A few minutes later, having recovered his composure, he told me that negotiators had advised residents to take only personal items with them in a maximum of two bags. After much deliberation Anas had decided to include a clean set of clothes that he could change into as soon as he got to Idlib. He also packed a few of the treasured mementos he had agonised over, some other valuables and his identity papers. Earlier that morning, he had been talking to friends who were also frantically packing. After four years of chaos, which had often involved moving from one bomb-damaged house to another, people were finding it hard to locate their ID papers, without which there might be big problems with officials later. Some of his friends, Anas told me, fearing that the regime’s soldiers would steal belongings that had been left behind, had decided to destroy what they couldn’t take with them, such as personal photos and even some very expensive things. Anas was advised not to take any books because these would probably be taken from him before boarding the bus. Though, somewhat alarmingly, just like the shell-shocked, half-starved children at Sara’s school, he had somehow lost his once insatiable appetite for reading and books. ‘To be honest with you, and I do want to be honest,’ he told me, ‘given all that’s been happening over the last few days, the sudden end of the siege and the need to get packed up and leave Daraya so quickly, I had almost forgotten about the secret library. I never believed this could happen. I love it so much. It must be the continuous lack of food, the constant barrel bombs and the round-the-clock effort to stay alive. My mind can no longer concentrate on reading any more.’

  In the circumstances, that seemed far from surprising, yet Anas was riddled with guilt. He clearly felt as though his brief neglect of the library was some kind of mortal sin, like failing to turn up at a place of worship on the holiest day of the year. Perhaps this was because the library had offered him and his friends such a refuge, a peaceful shelter from the storm, yet they were now abandoning it.

  There was, however, one person who I thought would find it harder than anyone to stay away from the place he adored so much, even when facing the trauma of imminent evacuation. Sara had told me that on each of her last visits there, Chief Librarian Amjad had been hard at work in the library, lovingly dusting and shelving the books he adored. Given that his family had found a basement to live in, almost next door to the library, getting there, even in these chaotic last days, would clearly not be a problem for him. I tried his number. Each time a recorded message told me that the number was either out of range or switched off. I wondered if Amjad and his family had somehow already left Daraya. But with pro-Assad forces advancing through the city over the last few days, that would surely have been almost impossible. I kept trying, but still the same message. Eventually I gave up. Then, around half-an-hour later, a text pinged on my phone. It said simply: ‘Yes.’ It was Amjad.

  I called his number once more, this time with success. It was great to hear Amjad’s cheerful young voice again, so full of life and enthusiasm. He seemed the same bright-eyed little charmer that I had first talked to so long ago. After we had exchanged hellos, I asked where he was and what he was doing. He replied that he was with his parents packing up their possessions. He, too, was struggling to work out what to take with him, though his job had been made easier, he said, by a bomb that had badly damaged his family’s former home. They had lost most of their possessions, so deciding what to bring with him didn’t take long. What about your time, I asked him, how have you been spending that over the last few days? What felt like an endless pause followed, though it was probably no more than a few seconds. When Amjad finally answered, the smile in his voice had gone. ‘I have spent a lot of my time sitting in the secret library, not really doing anything. I haven’t been able to take in what is happening. I kept being told that the regime’s soldiers were getting nearer and nearer. People said the end was coming. I would look at the books and think to myself, How am I going to leave them all if we have to flee? I felt very sad. But I kept on working there. I never left the library.’

  Amjad told me that for a while the secret library had become really quiet. Very few people came any more and it was pretty deserted. Then, over the last day or two, it suddenly got quite crowded again. Many people came back wanting to return the books they had borrowed in case they were forced to leave Daraya. They were worried about what might happen to the books if Assad’s soldiers came to their homes. They knew that all the books belonged to people who treasured them and might want them back one day. Many had come over the last twenty-four hours thanks to the ceasefire agreement: the lack of bombing and snipers had made it possible to get to the library safely. ‘It meant that I was very busy,’ Amjad continued. ‘I thanked the people returning the books and told them that I would make sure they would be stacked in the correct categories and that none would be discarded or left on the floor.’

  Amjad went on to tell me that some people had become very concerned about the books. They told him how valuable they were, clearly worried that they might be stolen or destroyed when everyone left. Amjad shared their fears, but said there was nothing anyone could do. They were in God’s hands, he told them. I tried to imagine the scene. At that stage nobody knew for sure exactly what was going to happen next. They wondered if the evacuation deal would go ahead as promised, or if instead they might be arrested or even butchered by Assad’s soldiers. And even if they were evacuated safely, as promised, what would happen to them when t
hey arrived at their destination? Where would they sleep, what would they eat? There were so many unanswered questions hanging in the air. Yet back at the library, despite facing such fearful unknowns, people actually seemed more worried about the welfare of their library books. This was astonishing to me. In Britain, many of us sit by and watch our long-serving libraries being shut down in their hundreds by cash-strapped councils, sometimes without as much as a murmur. Yet these dutiful individuals in Daraya, uprooted from their homes and heading into the complete unknown, still made sure they returned their library books.

  Not that Amjad appeared to think there was anything strange about this. Although his future was also hanging in the balance, he didn’t just throw the returned books in a box and run for the door. Instead, he dutifully signed all of them in, before carefully placing each one on the shelves according to subject, author and title. I was struck by his absolute love and dedication, not just for the books themselves, but for the library they were housed in. It seemed to me as if it was almost a place of worship, a temple of literature and Amjad’s description of his last few hours there seemed to bear that out: ‘I walked round and round the library asking myself, How am I going to leave this place? Each step I took, I stared all about me, trying to memorise all I saw. It was almost as if I was seeing the library for the first time. I was terribly sad. When I looked across the room at my little desk, I felt even more upset. I cried. I couldn’t stop myself. I had sat there so many times and learned so much in that very spot.’

  I remembered Sara telling me how often she had seen Amjad sitting at that little desk, eagerly trying to catch up on the school work he had missed. How she had told him to just keep at it and he would get there in the end. Like so many children and young adults, the war had sabotaged his education. When Amjad arrived there he had found it hard to concentrate but that changed over the following weeks. He had discovered a sanctuary within whose tranquil walls he could read books on all kinds of complex subjects and learn about his country and the world beyond.

  As our conversation drew to a close, I asked the Chief Librarian what plans he had for the future, and whether he had any particular career in mind. A long silence followed. Thinking he may not have heard me properly, I asked the question again. But Amjad’s mind was still in the secret library: ‘I’ll never forget my last hours at the library,’ he told me. ‘It was such a sad day, knowing I would be leaving it behind. The night before I just couldn’t sleep. I had always believed that I would never do that, that I would always work there and look after it. But I have no option. I console myself with the fact that I have some books to take with me. Most are to help me with my education. I also have a story book and another about praying. I am really lucky to be able to take these. My parents have told me that we can only bring two or three suitcases for the whole family, so I do hope there will be room for my books.’

  By midday on Friday, 26 August, buses accompanied by ambulances from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent had begun massing in the centre of Daraya. Thousands of people stood waiting for whatever might come next. Anxious mothers, hands clasped protectively around their children, next to frail old men with crooked sticks and weary, wrinkled faces. From afar they might appear to have massed on some kind of far-flung, hostile planet. A stark, grey world of rubble-filled craters and burnt-out buildings. The vibrant colours of normal life muted by summer dust and the debris of war. Daraya was now a crumbling urban desert, a mangled, broken wreck of what once was a town. That so much life still existed here amid the wreckage was a miracle of its own. Yet fleets of buses would soon begin draining the blood from its veins.

  Gathered in small groups under the scorching sun, young men engaged in intense conversation. Defiance mingled with despair in their half-closed, sleep-deprived eyes. To many of those huddled in the scorching summer heat, this was no peace deal. It was a humiliating surrender. Though at least their long-lasting ordeal by siege was nearly over. The question on many minds, both young and old, fighters and civilians, was: What next? At least Daraya, despite all its bombs, hunger and devastation, was home. Tomorrow, or the next day, brought the unknown. Life should be safer, at least for a while, and food more plentiful, but they would all be strangers in a faraway place. Where would they sleep, what would they eat and when could they come home again? If, that is, they ever could. Questions were many, but answers few.

  For the first time in four years, Syrian government soldiers walked through the streets of Daraya, rifles at the ready. Their faces showed no trace of uncertainty or fear. They had won. Some strutted past the lines of weary, encumbered civilians, their backs straight and heads held high. A victor’s walk. Yet, while the world watched on, the scene remained surprisingly calm. The UN had insisted that civilians should not be evacuated against their will. Though quite what the organisation could do if this was ignored remained unclear. Many pro-government Syrians elsewhere viewed the scene on television. They would have had little sympathy for the bedraggled lines of shell-shocked civilians, waiting forlornly to leave. Such people had long been depicted on state TV as terrorists, violent extremists bent on destroying everything ordinary Syrians held dear, a description the regime applied to all who opposed it with guns. An image that couldn’t be further removed from the inspiring souls who built the secret library, remarkable people who I had come to know well, lovers of literature, poetry and science who had long campaigned for tolerance and democracy.

  Finally, the first bus, packed with women, children and the elderly wended its way through Daraya’s rubble-strewn streets. Over the next two days many more buses followed, each ferrying exhausted and traumatised people out of the town they had clung to for so long. Front-line areas where few had dared move for years became scenes of frantic activity. But the same could not be said for the shell of a town they had left behind. Daraya, famous for its fine grapes, peaceful protests and love of learning, was dying.

  Unnoticed by most of those lugging their lives in bags towards the buses, a group of young men were dashing backwards and forwards around an inconspicuous basement entrance, carrying sacks of dirt and rubble. Like scurrying ants, they busied themselves, emptying their cargo over what remained of the door. They paid no heed to passers-by, nor the sweat that dripped down their faces and soaked their clothes. The young men entombing Daraya’s treasured secret library hoped to ensure that it stayed secret, hidden from those who might do it harm. One day, the burial team hoped to return, and bring it back to life.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In the weeks following the evacuation, I worried about the people I had come to know so well. Desperate for news, I tried calling and sending texts, but received no answer. Some of my attempts seemed to connect after a series of strange bleeps and whirring sounds, but there was never a human voice at the other end. Others led to nothing but silence, before the line cut out altogether. Where were they all now? Had they reached their destinations safely? For the moment, I had no answers at all.

  I couldn’t help worrying whether they were okay, but reminded myself that there were many practical reasons why I might be unable to reach them. Aside from a lack of Internet access, they could have had their phones and laptops taken from them by Syrian government forces when leaving Daraya. If so, it might be a while before they could get new ones in Idlib. Yet I kept remembering how few had trusted the regime to keep its word and allow them to leave the town safely. After all, President Bashar al-Assad had labelled all rebel opponents like them as terrorists. And this was a regime that, according to the human rights group Amnesty International, had hanged large numbers of its political prisoners, up to an estimated 13,000 detainees at the notorious Saydnaya military prison near Damascus.21 Amnesty also claimed it had found evidence that more than thirty different methods of torture had been used by the regime since the early 1980s and that such abuses had contributed to the deaths of a further 17,000 people held in detention facilities across Syria since 2011.22 When considering terrifying statistics like these, the last
of which were published just a week before the evacuation of Daraya, it was hard to feel confident that all would be well. Did Syrian forces really just stand by and let thousands of their declared enemies simply walk away? Well, that is exactly what they had done three months earlier, after the besieged, rebel-held city of Homs fell to pro-Assad soldiers and around 1,000 fighters and some civilians were allowed to leave for Idlib. I could only hope that this would again be the case, and it was mildly reassuring to see news footage showing numerous buses packed full of people heading in the direction of the same rebel-held province.

  My enquiries there had also been encouraging. People told me that several buses had arrived safely from Daraya soon after the evacuation. So far nobody had recognised any of the names and descriptions I had given them, but all had promised to keep looking.

  Idlib is one of fourteen provinces in Syria. It lies in the far north-west of the country, where its upper region borders Turkey. Its capital is the city of Idlib, situated about 500 metres above sea level, and sixty kilometres south-west of Syria’s second city, Aleppo. In 2010 the city, which is home to a museum containing 17,000 clay tablets from the ancient city of Elba, had a population of 165,000. This had increased hugely since then, due to the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people from formerly rebel-held areas of Syria. Many more were to follow in the months and years to come as other besieged, rebel-held towns fell to government forces. All this put growing pressure on local food supplies, health services and housing, though the largely anti-Assad community had so far accepted the new arrivals generously and without complaint.

  Those arriving from Daraya would find it a very different kind of place to the one they had left behind. To begin with there was no secret library, nor any public libraries at all, from what I had been told. Books were available, but only for those with the money to buy them, something most people from Daraya did not have. Even more significantly, much of Idlib was under the control of extremist Islamist groups whose idea of the revolution had little in common with those from Daraya.