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It has
been 50 years since the establishment of the state of Israel on
Palestinian soil and the expulsion of close to one million
Palestinians from their homes. The Palestinians refer to the event
“Al-Nakbah”-- the catastrophe or Palestinian holocaust. A whole
nation was uprooted from its ancestral land and thrown out to face
terror, turmoil, disruption, and destitution. Today, there are 3.5
million registered Palestinian refugees, 1.1 million of them
languishing in camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and
Lebanon. They are barred by Israel from returning to their homes
which have been taken over and occupied by Jewish settlers who came
from all parts of the world.
This is
the story of one of these forgotten refugees.
Saleema
Mimi (Umm Michel, “mother of
Michel,” her eldest son) was 27
years old on July 1948, when she, along with her husband and five
children, had to leave Lydda, a town situated in the central
“triangle” part of Palestine allocated to the Arabs
under the United Nations Partition Plan of November 1947.
She
spoke with anguish about the loss of their home, of her cherished
possessions, and especially of her
Watan (country).
She recalled the day in July 1948, the first day of Ramadan-- the
Moslem month of fasting-- when 25,000 Palestinian inhabitants of
Lydda were expelled at gunpoint from their homes by the Israeli
Army, taking nothing with them except for the clothes they were
wearing. She spoke of the horror and bewilderment of the three-day
march eastward over rough terrain to Ramallah. It was the height of
the Palestinian summer, dust billowed all around, Palestinians
suffered from severe thirst and exhaustion. Pregnant women aborted,
old people lay down and died, and frantic parents ran back and forth
looking for their lost children.
Saleema
was very anxious about her parents. Amidst the panic and confusion,
she did not know what had happened to them. She was particularly
worried about her father who had an arthritic condition and was
unable to walk.
When
Saleema and her family finally reached Ramallah, a small Palestinian
town a few miles north of Jerusalem, it seemed as if their ordeal
had just begun. After a great deal of trouble the Mimis were able to
find shelter in one room in a house, which eventually was packed
with 15 families. They had meagre funds, and these were quickly
spent in buying a few essentials: a coverlet to cover the children
at night, a broom, a primus (an old fashioned kerosene burner) to
cook on, and one cooking pot. They slept on the floor side by side,
the one coverlet spread over them.
One
bright spot was the arrival in Ramallah of Saleema’s parents. Her
brother had carried his crippled father on his back all the way from
Lydda. It had taken them four days.
In the
beginning, the Mimis, like all the refugees, thought they would be
returning to their home in Lydda soon. They took heart at the
unanimous passage of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution
194, of 1948, demanding that Israel permit the Palestine refugees to
return to their homes. But hope soon faded as they realized that
they faced a protracted exile in the face of Israeli intransigence
and refusal to comply with demands of the international community.
Over
the next three years Saleema
and her husband Abu Michel, continued to live in the one room with
their family which was enlarged by the birth of their sixth child, a
son, Nabil, shortly after their arrival in Ramallah.
Abu
Michel had been a bus driver in Palestine
on the regular Lydda-Ramleh route, and twice had been
shot and wounded by Israeli fire, while on the job. As a result, he
suffered poor health. He went around Ramallah doing odd jobs
wherever and whenever he could find them. With the little money this
brought in and some scant rations from the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) the Mimis eked out a
hand-to-mouth existence. However, Abu Michel’s health was failing
and in December 1951, at the age of 32, he died from internal
hemorrhage.
Saleema
was plunged in grief, shock and distress. “How
was I to cope?” she asked.
“I had six children to care for, the youngest only two
years old; I had no employable skills, and there was no one in the
family who was able to help me. I was lost and devastated.”
An aunt
in Amman who worked as housekeeper to the Latin (Roman Catholic)
bishop, suggested that her niece move to Amman and try and place her
children in the Latin Convent School. Saleema took this advice, and
40 days after her husband died, she moved to Amman. Her aunt had
rented a one-room shack for them in a slum area of the city. When
Saleema stepped into the dirty mud and tin hovel with the tiny
window, she wept on the inside and felt like giving it all up. “But
I had to be strong for the children’s sake,” she said. It was
winter, and when it rained the shack was flooded. Nothing could be
kept dry. The family coverlet got wet every night and had to be hung
up to dry during the day. One outdoor toilet served 15 families and
the Mimis had to plow through mud and slush to reach it. The
children were cold and wet all the time. Saleema’s first priority
was to find a healthier place to shelter her children. She trudged
all over the city to find a place she could afford. Eventually, she
moved to a tiny one-room apartment in a better part of the city.
“But, we still flooded in winter,” she said.
Saleema’s first act after “settling in” was to petition the Latin
Bishop to enter her children in the Latin convent school. But,
although the Mimis were Christians (Eastern orthodox) the Bishop
felt that priority should go to Roman Catholic families and denied
her repeated petitions. “It still scares me to think of that time,”
Saleema told me.
By
perseverance and tenacity she managed to find
jobs for the two older boys: Michel, 12, in a barber
shop, where he earned $3 a month, and Najib, 10, at a cabinet
maker’s, to fetch and carry, at a wage of 30 cents a day.
She
hated taking the boys out of school, but she had no alternative. She
herself did not want to leave home to work; the other children were
too little to be left alone. She searched for something to do from
home, and one day a little miracle happened. As she went from her
home to market each day she would pass a store selling sewing
machines, which she eyed with longing. One day the storekeeper
invited her in to choose a sewing machine. “I cannot afford one,”
she protested. But at the storekeeper’s insistence she went in, had
a look, and went on her way. On her return home from the market, she
was taken aback to find the sewing machine she had admired had been
delivered to the house. The kind storekeeper insisted she keep it
and pay him whenever she could. “God doesn’t forget anyone,” she
said.
So
Saleema took up sewing, mainly children’s clothing, but also
anything that came her way. For each garment she would receive 30
cents. It was hard, back-breaking, and low-paying work, “But I could
do it from home, look after the little children and keep an eye on
the older ones.” Saleema sewed from home for the next 15 years.
Those were hard years. It took every ounce of strength and
determination to feed and clothe six children and keep them in good
order.
After a
while she was able to place her two daughters in school, and
eventually her two younger sons. When, five years after the move to
Amman, Najib found a job for $24 a month, the whole family was
jubilant. “We felt very wealthy” said Saleema.
Today,
50 years after the “Nakba”,
Saleema still yearns for her lost home and country, she is thankful
that her children grew up to be strong, hard-working, and loving.
Four of them are happily married with children of their own. The
Mimis remain a closely-knit family. All the children contributed to
building a home for their mother a few miles west of Amman. Saleema
lives there with her two unmarried children: her daughter Najla, who
is a senior saleslady in one of Amman’s best known handicrafts
store, and her son, Fuad, who might be called the star of the
family: an artist, designer, and collector of impeccable taste.
I
interviewed Saleema in her beatiful new home, surrounded by Fuad’s
exquisite furnishings, cabinets, and paintings. Saleema at 77 is
small, slightly stooped, and has an arthritic condition in her legs,
but remains a proud, strong lady of indomitable spirit.
Hanging
prominently on the living-room wall is a large-- almost life-size--
portrait in oil of Saleema done by one of Jordan’s outstanding
painters Aziz Ammura. I commented on the power and beauty of the
painting. “You see that dress?” asked Saleema, “it is the same dress
I was wearing when I left my country. It has witnessed my life story
since. It was my only dress for a very long time. I wore it during
the day and folded it up and used it as a pillow at night. I still
have that dress, and I still have my sewing machine.”
I asked
Saleema if she wanted to return and live in Lydda if the Israelis
permitted it. She answered promptly, “Of
course I would. It is my home, my country; my grandfather, great
grandfather, great great
grandfathers for generations are buried there; my roots are there;
one’s country is more precious than life!”
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