…ten children. Six girls and four boys. My father passed away (when) we were young and my mother raised us. And our name was famous: Naima with the fabric. She would sell fabric. All of her ancestors were fabric merchants and from my father’s side too - they were also fabric merchants. They raised us…until (19)66. They were arrested. And they hit her and put an iron on her arm and said to her […]. 

(19)63. After, they said to her “give us money”. She gave them money and…they let her out. After…three years, they arrested my brother Sami, the second one. And…they took him and tied him to a […]. They hit his head. They said to us, “bring us money”.

My mother heard that he was in prison, and was seeing that they were arresting people and throwing them in the river. 

She said, “oh my Gd, my son! My son! My son!”. She had a headache for three days. Then she went into a coma and passed away.

My siblings…they arrested the family and in (19)67 in…the Six Day War, six day war. The Arabs…lost the war. And they started taking revenge on the Jews in Iraq. Because the Iraqi army was…in Jordan. The Iraqi army was in Jordan and Israel came and beat them in […]. They started taking revenge on the Jews.

They didn’t allow them (Jews) to study at universities, and didn’t let them do business […] they cut their house telephones. The money…they couldn’t take it from the bank. What else? They couldn’t sell their houses, and later they started…they couldn’t go from house to house. They had to […] permission. 

I finished secondary school at Frank Eini school in (19)68. I brought the paperwork to get accepted into university and in the end they didn’t accept me, because I’m Jewish.

I remember…dad was alive. Because…he died…it seems to me (I think) in the year (19)43. Either (194)2 or (194)3. I was young. She had…my mother had…Hanukkah…what a hanukkia. Such size. It (was made) entirely of silver. Of silver. And it (was) entirely cups…how many? Eight cups, right? For Hanukkah? It was eight (cups). They would put…oil…oil…sesame oil and water, and put in a wick, how beautiful! And it was this big […] and they hung…they would attach it to the ceiling. There’s something special, (they would) attach it and light it…every day a cup. Every day a cup. And we would…all of us would…we would all sit around dad, and he would light the candles and say the blessings and we (would) all (say) amen. Every day (it was) like that, every day (it was) like that. And of course they (would) do (something) like a party. Every day, for eight days, they would do (it) like that.