An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba

by Doctor Nahla Abdo

  Khadeejeh Khalil AbuIsba, displaced from Salamah28 and currently residing in Amman, came up with a special term, through which she expressed her refusal to describe her departure from Palestine as immigration. Instead, she used a very specific word, “elevation”, to indicate a temporary move out of one place to another:

  First they let the women go out before the men and the revolutionaries [she refutes the idea that the family immigrated. In the preliminary interview, she answered the question about immigration angrily: “we did not immigrate; we were elevated, meaning we left temporarily until we were able to return”. She repeated several times: “no, no, we did not immigrate”].

  When we left Salamah had fallen on 25 April 1948 [she insists on the date when Salamah was occupied, her eyes staring and her expression hardening]. What did they do? The Jews besieged the town from all four sides, where would the people leave. The Jews kept an opening as if to say, come on, leave, we have opened the road for you to leave through the valley that separates our town from Yazour.29 The valley was there between our town and Yazour. Therefore, when my brother and cousin left with their cars, which belonged to the dairy company, they were unable to drive down the valley. They parked the cars and swam. When they came out of water, they had reached Al-Lydd.30

  WOMEN’S EFFECTIVENESS: PARTICIPATION IN THE ECONOMY

  Since the early days of the first displacement in 1948, the management of the family’s economic affairs constituted a primary concern for rural women. These women thought of the most important items to carry with them as they left their houses: they carried: some cooking utensils,31 grains and mills,32 some poultry and donkeys,33 money,34 jewellery,35 embroidered items36 and identification documents.37 They took pillows, duvets and mattresses,38 as well as the keys to their houses.39 They sold their gold, which they had saved, grew their own food and took up paid work. Despite the very harsh living conditions, the women insisted on an education for their children. Women left the private sphere and entered the public sphere in order to contribute towards securing their family finances. They sold their homemade products in the market, worked in the fields, worked at sewing and embroidery.

  Rasheedeh Hasan Fdalat talked about the displaced women’s work in cutting and gathering wood to be used for cooking, first in order to feed the family and also to contribute towards supporting their families by selling the wood. She talked about having to work at a young age gathering wood, and her insistence on going to school at the same time despite her youth. She then talked about her determination to learn how to sew in order to find a paid job and be financially independent. Through her story, the suffering becomes apparent at all levels: social, psychological, economic and health:

  We went to Al Arroub refugee camp. Every ten days the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) would distribute one kilogramme of flour per person, each person would get one kilogramme of flour. Sometimes, they would distribute fish, or cheese [she draws a circle on her palm to show the shape of the cheese], or dried eggs in packets like this. You would take the contents of the packets, stir it in water and eat it with bread. Yes, we would eat it. It was a miserable life; there were no markets or shops, nothing of the basic elements for life. We only had water, we would go fill the clay jugs and put them in the tent. How can we manage? What shall we do? Women started going out to collect wood. The baker and his name was Abu Mohammad would tell them: bring the wood to me. Instead of going here and there trying to sell it come to me and I will buy the wood from you for the bakery. Initially, I used to go to school. At the school, they brought together all the girls, all of them and I was studying at the school. Some of our relatives started collecting wood. My mom told them: take Rasheedeh with you and she will make a bundle of wood for me and one for her and we would go back home. Praise be upon Prophet Mohammad, we put the wood here like this and there came the baker. He asked my mom, would you sell the wood “Umm Ismail”? She said, we use them for cooking, [she starts counting on her hands] we need fire to cook, for washing the clothes, for bathing, all in this tent, in this tent. They had given us a small tent because we were a small family: myself, my brother, my mom, and my sister. We were four sleeping in the tent. A small tent with one pole [she raises her hand making the shape of a pole] one pole. How much did he want to pay for the wood? He wanted to pay 75 dimes! 75 dimes, but at the time that was a good amount of money. With one dime, you could get what you wanted. If you wanted [and she started counting on her hands] tea you could get it with one dime, but there were no shops then yet. My mom was not used to go out to collect wood or even get out into the non-built-up area. The Fdalat family particularly, and I say that to everyone, their women never went out to the fields, never participated in the harvest, or anything of the sort. It is true they owned shops and the women would sit at the shops to help their husbands but that was it. Here, she said, make the bundle bigger and I will meet you half way. She started to meet me half way and carry a bundle of wood on her back, on her shoulders but could not carry it on her head. Gradually, she started to meet me and take off some of my burden. We were barefooted, walking on the thorns, did not have anything to protect our hands, had thorns on our heads. We would go and start removing the thorns [she moves her fingers on her hand as if she is taking out the thorns] and we would take out the thorns of each other’s hands. There was no soap or “Tide” [washing detergent] like these days for people to use for cleaning themselves.

  People suffered even from lice! They suffered from lice and the Americans came, took lice from people’s heads, and put them in jars! This was how poor people were. There was nothing that could be used as cleaning detergents. You would go to wash the clothes [she moves her hands as if rubbing a piece of cloth] like this; you would wash your son’s head with water sometimes. We did not have the basic necessities of life. When father did not come back and no one brought us any news about him, whether he died or recovered or anything, my mother said: until when will I sit still like this? So she started to also go out with us, we would go out to collect wood together. We were kids, we remained in the camp. I used to go to collect wood and go to the teacher. She would tell me: Where were you? Why were you absent “Miss” Rasheedeh? I would tell her: I was collecting wood my teacher. She would tell me listen; you go to either collect wood or come to school! But to do both it does not work out. I used to come back from collecting wood at 10 o’clock; the girls would have had all the lessons. My classmates would feel sorry for me, one of them would write to me saying, answer this way [she writes on her hand], and another girl would write something, and they would pass the paper to me through the boys. One time, I wrote maybe two words on my paper, but I was unable to write everything, just what the girls sent me. The teacher said, hand in your papers, and we did. Peace be upon Prophet Mohammad, the teacher wrote, where is the rest of the answers “Rasheedeh”? Each one of you should write their names on their paper. Then I took out that paper, the one that my friends wrote to help me. I got ten out of ten, a full mark.

  The teacher was surprised and said oh, excellent. Then they opened a place to teach girls sewing. They started to do this gradually for the refugee camps. They brought a tent next to the school’s tent. We were in tents. We would study in tents, wearing our regular clothes (she points to her clothes), just the way we were dressed, there was no uniform, no special clothes, no shoes. I did not even have slippers or anything. We used to walk back and forth barefooted in the same dress. We did not even have any underwear. They said, they teach sewing.

  My mother said, go “Rasheedeh” go and learn how to sew, forget about school. I went there. They taught us how to sew. The clothes would come cut and ready and we would just sew them manually [she moves her hands as if she is sewing], a machine stich. We learned sewing and it benefited us when we grew older. They taught us how to knit using knitting needles. However, I was always busy, as I told you: I would go to collect wood and come back only to find that the girls took all the lessons and the same applied to sewi
ng. I would go to collect wood only to come back and find out that the girls learned everything. I would go and when I return I would find that they have learned everything about weaving and I would know nothing. I would come always late and the girls would be waiting impatiently to finish and go home, they would not want to stay behind to show me what they learned. My mom ‒ May she rest in peace ‒ took me with her and went to some of our neighbours. At the end we remained, we remained in the refugee camps. There was a teacher called Miss “Zakiyyeh”, she used to teach us and the male teachers would teach the boys. They would give them for each student they teach, or maybe there was another way to figure that out, one kilogram of flour. Every ten days, they would give them one kilogram of flour. But they showed patience and perseverance, they remained steadfast and continued to teach the students.40

  Unlike women displaced from the villages, discussed above, women displaced from the cities carried with them some money,41 some pictures and the family documents,42 clothes, silver and carpets,43 jewellery,44 wooden boxes containing embroidered items,45 embroidered wedding dresses,46 embroidered handkerchiefs, and a special kind of embroidered covers and sheets.47

  Some of the women had to contribute towards their families’ financial costs, primarily by becoming teachers or learning sewing. Many of them had received a good education and learned some technical skills that allowed them to obtain paid jobs. Some of them worked in hosting countries and some of them had worked in the Gulf.

  Regarding city women who became refugees, “Sana Kamel Aldajani” spoke about Palestinian women’s work in teaching following their displacement in order to support their families:

  When we were evacuated, many Palestinian women provided for their families financially. They went to teach in all the Arab countries. The women helped their husbands; they were completely different from who they were in their country after the displacement. Sometimes they took the responsibility for their families alone and on their own. I have a very good example for women who took the full responsibility for their families. I will never forget Mrs. “Mufeeda Al Dabbagh”, a very respectable woman from Yafa who comes from a well-known family. She and her sister left for Saudi Arabia right after the displacement. She was my school principal in Yafa and that is how I know her. Anyway, she went to teach, that was her and her sister’s weapon. She was chosen to teach the king’s daughters, my God how much she benefited from that! How much they loved her! How productive she was! She was the first to open a girls’ school there and she called it “Al Hanan” [Tenderness]. The school exists until this day, the school of Mrs. “Mufeeda Al Dabbagh” from Yafa and her sister Mrs. Kamleh, may they rest in peace. They were the first to open the Al Hanan School for the royal family and then the school was open for everyone in Riyadh. I just gave this as an example of what our girls and women were able to do, particularly in the field of teaching. It was the biggest and most comprehensive field of work that allowed women to stand by their men at the time of their displacement until now.48

  Firyal Hanna Abuawad, displaced from Beit Jala49 and currently residing in Santiago, Chile, talked about her and her siblings’ work in sewing after her displacement, which helped in securing her family’s livelihood:

  I was responsible for the female workers. I was sixteen years old and I was responsible for all the female workers at the factors. My sister was responsible for the designs. She was a seamstress working in Jerusalem. When she came here [to Santiago], she was the fashion designer. My brother “Faisal” used to cut the clothes and do different tasks. My father bought this big house. He bought a very, very big house. It was originally a school before they rented it out. It used to accommodate 140 workers. I was not married then. At the time here was between twenty and twenty-five workers and I was their supervisor.50

  ELEMENTS OF STRENGTH

  Through the women’s stories about the details of their journey of displacement, two juxtaposed images emerge that combine strength and weakness, steadfastness and suffering. There is the image of the woman as the victim who was subjected to systematic violence and experienced various forms of pain, various forms of economic, social, psychological and physical suffering. In addition there is the image of the woman as fiercely fighting for her right and the right of her family to a dignified life. The woman who fights through all possible means for her people’s right to freedom, and who is aware of the importance of education, the media, music, folkloric songs and the arts in general in people’s lives.

  Ameeneh Mahmoud Alafghani described the horrific journey of displacement from Yafa to Nablus. She also described how she smuggled her husband’s weapon (a gun) from Yafa:

  We were just going about our regular life, my husband was working and we were happy. Suddenly, hell broke loose, some of the neighbours fled, cars stopped moving. We were afraid. My husband worked for Jews as a guard. We took our mattresses and ran away. We went to a neighbourhood called Tal Al Reesh. My mother had a house there and we stayed in it. I stayed there; we packed the mattresses and the clothes. I cooked “Mloukhiyya” with fava beans [a dish called Bissara]. I served the food, only to hear my husband saying, go, everyone is at the house, they have all gathered here. The women had run away. I ran away with my little sister. At night, I told him: I want to go. He told me: come, let us go, I want to take you to Saknah. I had a great fall; it was night time and very dark. I could not see from the darkness and the sense of fear. My husband told me: I want to help you escape. We left and crossed through the groves to avoid being detected by the binoculars.

  We went to my sister’s house. She was married and lived there and we spent the rest of our night there. In the morning, we ran away. Where to? He told me: I found a house in a neighbourhood called Saknet Al Ghazazweh. It is empty there is no one there. We went, my little sister, and me alone. My brother went to his work, and my mother had not left yet. I was afraid all night and the cats were mewing all the time.

  There was no water and no light. I kept my eyes open until the morning. I could not wait for the morning to arrive. In the morning, my mother came; my mother, my dad, and my brother came. We remained with them for a while. We would eat and drink together. Then my husband said we have to go to Nablus. I tried to convince him otherwise, but he said, no the neighbourhood is empty, no one is here, there is no water and there is no food, there is nothing here.

  We went to the sea, together with the people who remained with us. There we thought we would ride a boat like the others. They told us people were taking the boats, and would be in the sea for seven days but then they go back to the shore. We were afraid that we would face the same fate. We went back to Nablus. We arrived there in the evening. My husband had a gun that I smuggled with me. We were desperate to bring it with us.51

  Labeebeh Rashid Aleesa talked about the resistance by Saffourieh’s women; how they faced the conspiracy of displacement, and how they confronted and clashed with the soldiers:

  They forced them all out of Saffourieh, by force. There was one woman related to us. She said that the soldiers would come to force them out of the town. The women would go out to beat them and shout at them. One woman had beaten a soldier and had taken away his helmet and his weapon, and ran away. They told her: the soldiers will come now and arrest you. She told me, I was really sent to prison. She went, took a bath, and changed her clothes. Soon after, the soldiers were asking about her, and then they took her and put her in jail. Her name was Suad, “Suad Saeed”, if I remember correctly.52

  Through the testimony of Samiyyeh Abdelrahman Altaji, displaced from Al-Ramleh53 and currently residing in Amman, women worked at polishing the bullets that resistance fighters used to confront the occupiers and resist the displacement:

  They sent us weapons from Egypt but it was all rusted. All the bullets that came for the guns were rusted. I would sit together with my mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, and later my brother-in-law’s wife, the five of us women the whole night polishing the bullets so that they can use them for the weapons
.

  Ultimately, the Jews came; when they entered, they told us: it is time for you to leave. My father-in-law told them: I want to remain here; they told him the entire town’s residents could remain except Sheikh “Mustafa Al Khairi” because when there were problems in the villages surrounding Ar-Ramleh, they would come to my father-in-law to rule between the parties, my father-in-law would decide on the cases like a judge and would help parties to reconcile. The people did not resort to the British government and the Jews hated him because they knew he was the “ruler” of all Ar-Ramleh villages as well as Al-Lydd’s villages. He told them eventually: I am staying here and I will not leave and you have to allow me to remain here.54

  The role of women emerges not only in resisting displacement but also in trying to stop some of the massacres. Maryam Muhamad Noufal, displaced from Hleiqat55 and living in Jabalia refugee camp,56 talked about the women57 who managed to stop the Dayaymeh massacre by shouting in the faces of the aggressors:

  Everyone was standing for prayers at the mosque; they killed them, yes they killed them! My aunt “Hadyyeh” from her family, they started shouting with the mayhem of people, the officers went in and forced the Jews to leave after they killed all those who were in the front row. If they had left them there, they would have continued killing the people. The women started shouting, they came, and the women started running. There are no women like the women of Dawaymeh.58

  The role of women as partners of men in resisting the aggression emerges through the testimony of Rasheedeh Hasan Fdalat:

  They were resisting, resisting, men and women alike. Yet, Umm Rabah would sit amidst the sacks on the roof of the house. She would sit and watch where the shooting was coming from. When she saw her husband feeling tired, she would tell him: go down and I will go up to replace you. They would alternate roles. All our women were resisting alone, they did not receive any training or anything! They were alone. You could say that they were able to communicate with the Egyptian army and were able to understand each other. Therefore, they would watch things at least or pass weapons! They would give them water and food in the trenches. The Egyptian soldiers had dug trenches in the town, and the women would go and serve them food and water, and sometimes weapons if possible.59