Today, Deir Yassin is called Giv'at Shaul, the Hebrew name of the
Israeli neighborhood that was built on the ruins of the Palestinian
village near Jerusalem. On April 9, 1948, this village was attacked
and captured by the Zionist Irgun, Lehi and Stern organizations,
who killed many people, including old persons, women and children
(the actual number of those massacred is under discussion among
historians). The Deir Yassin massacre is significant, not only for
its cruelty, but also because it is cited as having sparked the
panic that led hundreds and thousands of Palestinians to flee their
homes in Palestine, fearing similar massacres at the hands of the
Jews.
Memories of a Summer
Many stories have been told about the Deir Yassin massacre. I
believe that no one knows what really happened that day. My
maternal grandmother, who was then about 15 years old, was one of
the lucky survivors. Although she rarely speaks about her
experience, she could never forget what happened. I know she had to
leave her husband and several of her close relatives, after they
had been killed by the Jewish forces, without as much as a last
glance or a last good-bye. It is hard to stir the memories of such
a past, but I decided to ask my grandmother to recount her
experience. This was her account:
We were neighbors with the Jews. We used to sell them our produce
and they used to come to our village to buy stone, for our village
was famous for its building stones. The name of the village in
Arabic consists of two parts: "deir" which means monastery, after a
monastery built there by a monk, and "Yassin," after Sheikh Yassin
who built a mosque in the village. The village proper was thus
located between these two edifices. It is situated on a high stony
ridge, surrounded by olive and pine trees. There were old houses in
the center of the village and beautiful new houses towards the
periphery. The people were farmers and used to plant grains,
olives, fruit trees and vines. The women would go daily to sell the
crops to the Jews in Mahane Yehudah and Montefiori and to buy
chicken and meat from them. During those days, horses and camels
were the only means of transportation.
When I got married, I lived in my father-in-law's house, where I
gave birth to my only two daughters, Zeinab and Miyassar. That
fateful Thursday, my husband, Ali, decided to mount the night watch
in the village in place of his brother. He put on his jacket,
carried his gun and took 1½-year-old Zeinab with him. He
dropped her at my parents' house. I never saw my husband after that
day.
No Time to Think
At 3.00 a.m., we heard a lot of shooting and shelling. I hid my
6-month-old daughter Miyassar inside my dress and I ran down the
stairs. Bullets whizzed past my head. Somebody shouted for me to
get down. I crawled to the front door. Dust filled the area. It was
difficult to see. People were rushing everywhere. Some were calling
aloud the names of those who were hit or killed. Bodies were strewn
all over the place. There was the blood-covered body of my
father-in-law. A few meters away lay my aunt with her two babies
killed at their own front door. One baby was in her lap, the other
next to her. I kept on running. Soldiers were rounding up one whole
family - the Zahran family. They lined them up and shot them in
cold blood.
The shooting was concentrated in the center of the village. I ran
towards my aunt's house at the edge of the village. On the way, I
saw soldiers going from house to house ordering the occupants out
and shooting them. In this mess, I forgot all about my parents'
house and my second daughter. All I thought of was to flee the
shooting and the fire. At my aunt's house were six women who had
also sought refuge there. Although the house was at the edge of the
village, it shook with every explosion. In the evening, we heard
loud noises outside. One woman went out to check. She saw the
soldiers had already reached our area and were entering the houses,
shooting and looting. We decided to leave. All we took with us were
our children and we kept on running in the direction of Ein Karem.
There was no time to think of food or drink or, indeed, lost
children or parents.
We continued running until we reached the village of al-Walaja. We
reached some man's house. We were all in shock. He brought milk for
my baby girl. I had given up on my other daughter and my parents.
We stayed at the man's house for two days. There we heard that the
Jews had taken all the captured from Deir Yassin to al-Musrara
Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. We decided to go to Silwan,
near the Old City. There I found my parents, my daughter and one of
my brothers. The rest of my family had been killed in the
attack.
Preserving the Memory
In Silwan, we were received by one of the families of the village.
We spent a fortnight at their house, after which my father took us
- my mother, brother, my two daughters and myself - to Abu Dis,
near Jerusalem. We had no money. We walked all the way. We settled
in Abu Dis for what we thought would be a short period. But the
years have passed and nothing has happened. Here I am still in Abu
Dis. I never went back to Deir Yassin since the day I left the
village, running and scared. I do not want to remember the blood; I
do not want to remember the ruins. I want to keep the memory of my
village as I left it, green and peaceful.
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