I was young. I went to school (and) at the school they didn’t like us. Why? Because we were Jews. Everything we did, they (responded by) hitting us. They hit me a lot on my arm, on my head, and they made me stand on…with my hand above (in the air). And I would come home crying, and I was scared. When we would go to school, the Muslims would come and hit us. And many, many (Jewish) women were taken…they were big (the men who took the Jewish girls), and they took them to their houses. One day I came to school and my underwear ripped. She, the teacher, wanted me to solve a mathematical (problem). Nobody knew how to solve the question. She said to me, “Badia!”. My name was Badia back then, in Arabic. She said, “Badia, come. You do it (the problem).” I said to her, “I don’t want to. I don’t want to.” (She said) “I said ‘come!’ Now! Now!”. And she had a stick in her hand, and she was scaring me. And I said to her, “I don’t agree. I don’t want to.” She took me. Why didn’t I want to? I was afraid to do the problem…I was afraid to raise my hand in case they saw my backside and laughed at me. And…I didn’t agree. She put me…everyone went home. Only I (had to) remain at school, and she left me there with my hand (above my head) with my face on the wall. And she left me like this (with my hands above my head). She closed the door and went. My sister went home…she went home and my mother said to her, “where is Badia?”. She (my sister) said to her, “she…(the teacher) left her in the room and shut the door on her (because) she didn’t agree…she told her (the teacher) she didn’t want to solve the problem.” My mother was pregnant…eight months pregnant with my brother. And she went…she put on an abaya and went to the school and said to her (the teacher), “where is my daughter?”. She (the teacher) said to her (my mother), “in the room.” (My mother asked) “Why is she in the room? What did she do?”. (The teacher responded) “She didn’t agree to come to the blackboard and I prevented her from going home.” (My mother) came to me (and asked), “Badia, why didn’t you…do what she (the teacher) wanted?”. So I said to her, “how could I give…raise my hand? They would see my backside.” And I sat crying. I cried, cried, cried. She (my mother) went to them (the school staff) and said to her (the teacher), “why did you do that to her (my daughter)? Did you ask her? Did you ask her why she didn’t want (to do it)? (Did you ask her) what happened (what was wrong)?”. She was silent. The teacher was silent. My mother took me and we went home. We went home and I didn’t go to school. And I stayed home.

We…there was the Farhud. And they hit my father, and threw him in…in the water. And he was expelled. They took the keys of…where the [__] lives. They took all his gold from him. My mother didn’t know. My mother was pregnant. She went searching for him…and saw him. She took him from there and a…someone…when the Farhud happened, they came into our house and stole (things) and robbed…everything…however much they wanted, they took. Money, gold…my mother couldn’t work in Iraq. Women didn’t go to work, and she didn’t have money. My cousin came and he said to her, to my mother, “Naima, do you want to go to Israel?”. Like that. Really like that. And she said, “now! Now! I want to go right now!”. He said “okay”. He said to her, “take your children, dress them in a lot of clothes on them. And take food for them. I’ll come at 2am and I’ll take you.” He took us, and we came (over the course of) four days and four nights. We went to Persia. I can say Persia. To Persia. And we went there, and my mother took the gold she had, and put (hid) it on her stomach so they wouldn’t know that she had some gold with her. And we went there. We went there…for three…for fifteen days we were there. And then they took us to Persia. They took us to Persia, and from Persia the airplane came and brought us to Israel.