Dr. Adnan Musallam Website

I. Introduction: The Oral History Collection at Bethlehem University and Power Point Presentation and a Lecture concerning “Palestinian Memory of World War I”, 6^th of June 2009, Bethlehem University.

VII. World War I (July 1914 – November 1918): Historical Context of the Study of the Memories of Palestinian Arab Elderlies and Palestinian Arab Political Agitation, 1917-1918

VIII. Findings: Traumatic Events in the World War I Memories and Students Interviews / Spring 1993

In the Spring Semester of 1993 students in Hist132 (Modern History of the Arab World) classes began doing their term papers in the form of field work/research in the area of oral history, with special focus on the elderlies and their version of Palestinian historical memory. At that early stage students' efforts were focused on World War I. Later on the sample of people interviewed included both old and young, males and females, from different parts of Palestine who explored with B.U. students different historical periods in the 20^th century.

Interest in Palestinian oral history was further strengthened when the Irish Friends of Bethlehem University invited Dr. Musallam to spend a week at University College Dublin's Center for Celtic Studies and Department of Irish Folklore in January 1994 to explore the resources of Irish oral traditions and collection. It was indeed a moving experience and an inspiration to learn about Irish history and the people's struggle to maintain their culture and heritage. And it reminded me to a certain extent with the Palestinian experience during the British Era, 1917 - 1948.

Since my return from Ireland in 1994 I have been collecting hundreds of duplicate term papers each with cassette tapes. This unique BU Students Oral History Collection is located temporarily in a the Boiler Room across from the Archives office in the University Library. The collection covers the following files:

1. Experiences of the elderlies who lived through the tormenting years of World War I.

6. The Palestinian uprooting experiences of 1948 (the largest collection) - Present.

14. A collection from Cultural Studies courses (CS 302-303) dealing with comparative studies of past and present traditions and customs.

Important Note: on the 6^th of June 2009, I took an active part in the Fourth international Palestinian Literature Conference, The Intangible Cultural Heritage in Palestine, Bethlehem University where I presented a power point and a lecture on the oral history collection and Palestinian Memory of World War I. Thanks to the Bethlehem University Internal Research Grant that made this lecture possible.

II.. The Present State of the Oral History Collection at Bethlehem University

Since Spring 1993 a problem surfaced during the difficult transient stage. How to store the collection without further damages. By chance we found that the Print Shop throws away daily 21 x 29.7 cm boxes which originally contain plain white paper used by photocopiers and printers etc… Since that discovery in 1998 we had further sifted through the black plastic bags and refilled the material in the new boxes. And this process took much time to complete. And of course the biggest problem the collection is facing now is the overcrowded conditions in the Library Boiler Room. By the end of December 2008, the Collection which comprises hundreds of students field reports each with one or more cassette tapes or CD’s had been properly placed in the Library Boiler Room in temporary 21 x 29.7 cm carton boxes, each of which was properly marked as to indicate the various historical periods of the Collection. Eventually, we need a more permanent set up with a scholarly environment to help us utilize fully the collection for the benefit of our university community, the local community, Palestinian society, and world researchers, and especially that since Spring of 2008 we have been offering a course on Oral History (for teachers) which I offered in the Spring of 2009. I had 23, 4^th year students.

The content of each box was in return recorded by hand on Data Base Entry (DBE) sheets which were designed earlier and are based on future automated multi-card index system, the program of which has been developed earlier by the computer staff. However, I redesigned the basic DBE sheet in such a way as to expand the headings to include more information on interviewee and on the cassette tapes and a hard copy that accompany each student report. (See attached revised DBE sheet).

I hoped then that the revision of the DBE will help to produce a more coherent and detailed final product such as a catalog. This revision prompted me to take a second look at the cataloguing procedures which were done earlier.

I took each DBE sheet and paired each entry in it with the actual student field report and cassette tape. As I looked through each report I was able to single out outstanding students’ reports. I hoped to keep track of these reports until such a time when financial resources become available and a Board comprising University faculty members and community leaders can be formed to help me to decide on papers that would qualify for publishing. The Internal Research Grant is giving me finally the opportunity to begin working on the World War I collection.

After sifting through each report, I assigned cassette tape a catalog number i.e., the basic identification number for the report. For example, S 93001. S stands for Spring Semester, and 93 for 1993 and 001 for the sequence number. (F stands for Fall and Sm for Summer). This identification number was then properly recorded on both the front page of the report and on the cassette tape as well on the DBE sheet.

The only problem I faced at this stage was missing cassette tapes. By the time I began cataloguing of the Collection I found some of these tapes. I catalogued them and placed them in their proper files and boxes. It was a time consuming process, but a necessary one. But further searching and cataloguing are needed.

One of the largest rare collection are reports and tapes of World War I period. These were submitted in Spring 1993, Spring Semester 1994, Fall 1994, Spring 1995, Fall 1998, and Spring 2000. Also few interviews were collected in the early 2000’s. As far as I know, this World War I collection is the first of its kind in Palestine. I do not know of anyone who is dealing with this period. Most oral history research is being done on the 1948-1949 Nakbeh. My students collection comprises a very large Nakbeh collection as well. I am very thrilled that my students managed to do the gathering of this information at the time when most of that generation of World War I has died. And by the time this collection is disseminated to the community following the completion of the World War I Internal Research Grant research, the generation would have been dead.

The internal Research Grant has helped me to achieve many objectives with the help of my student research assistant since Fall 2008, who is a first year full time student at Bethlehem University and who is being funded by an earlier the late Bill Bellamy’s contributions to the collection.

With the help of my student assistant and the Audio-Visual Department at the University beginning Fall of 2008, we began sifting through the World War I material. It was a difficult stage because many tapes and papers were misplaced as a result of moving collected material constantly to different places including moving the collection finally to the Library’s Boiler Room.

In the meantime, my student assistant, with the support of the Audio-Visual Department in the Library and the Head of the Library, is creating a data base for the World War I collection. This is a very positive development that I have been waiting for. For the first time I feel that the collection is being utilized.

In addition, I hope to develop eventually reference materials to the World War I Collection that will help users have an easy access to the collection. I am hoping to develop a guidebook to the individual files of the collection. For example, a guidebook for “Experiences of the elderlies who lived through World War I years”. The guidebook will include a listing of the full names of the interviewee, their present location and date of the interview. With each name there will be also listed the full name of the students who did the interview. I will list with each name information relevant to the taped material including type of the cassette that was used to tape the material on an time-duration of each cassette. But this will need much time, efforts and financial resources if we want to make it an integral part of a viable AV data base.

Since 1993 I have been asking my students to collect oral narratives of contemporary history. I always tell my students: When you make an interview for oral history, don't let people give you theories or a political statement; please make sure that you get some kind of personal narrative. Let people speak naturally and spontaneously. The personal narrative will give your interview the human touch. It is true that oral history does not yield the final authorized version of history. People sometimes have flawed memories. But oral history augments and enlivens the written record. You can also analyze narrative oral histories in a systematic manner, and see how stories, when they are shared, play a role in the building of the community and the nation. That hasn't yet been done in Palestine. Oral history is important for creating historical perspective. It almost inevitably leads people to compare things then and now. One area which we have dealt with extensively is World War 1. My students did a lot of interviews with people who lived through World War 1, who told about their misery, the struggle they had to face with hunger and diseases, forced military conscription, and how they tried to run away from the service. How people chased after horses, and looked for the waste of the animals; picked the barley from it and cleaned it, made flour out of it and baked bread for the starving families from it. The message students received was: Palestinians may go through a difficult time now, but it is not comparable to what our grandfathers went through.

Another area are the stories about the Palestinian uprisings in the 1920s and 1930s, especially the six months strike in 1936. Some of the material we collected tell the personal experiences of the people at the time, how they created self-sufficiency, what they did so that they wouldn't run out of food supplies. The nature of the society was more rural than nowadays. People had all kinds of stored material from the summer, dried grapes and so on. It makes one compare how it was done at that time and how it was done more recently during the Intifada when people also tried to create some kind of self-sufficient economy by storing food in the years 1987 – 1990.

The bottom line is that personal narratives are more telling and convincing than giving a lecture about history. Oral history makes teaching more enjoyable. The ordinary person can also connect easier with others through these personal stories, and this, if it is done in the right way, can really strengthen the community. It can also be therapeutically. When my students asked older people about the uprooting in 1948, their respondents had a difficult time, people could barely keep their tears inside. They were never asked about their personal stories before the uprooting.[1] Even though historians since ancient times such as Homer relied on oral tradition, 19^th century historians, thinking about history as a science, began to rely totally on documentary sources. However, from the 1950’s and 1960’s historians began to focus on “personal testimony.” Since then “oral history has been a democratizing force in historical work, and a crucial means of achieving cultural and political recognition for marginalized groups. In countries with recent histories of trauma and political instability, oral history has urgent applications in restorative justice processes and national reconciliation.”[2] I do strongly believe that Palestinian history, having been suppressed since ancient times,[3] and thus full of traumas, needs to be rejuvenated through the augmentation of documentary history with the oral history as seen clearly in the classical work of the scholar Rosemary Sayigh and the chapter on the uprooting of Palestinians in 1948. (The Nakbeh)[4].

One should emphasize at the beginning of the analysis that students named above were not professional oral historians or history majors. They were students from the faculty of Arts who were taking a required history course on the Modern Arab World (History 132) and who did their research work in the field of interviews with the elederlies with the guidance of their teacher Adnan Musallam who was not a professional oral historian either but a specialist on contemporary Arabic/Islamic though but who decided in spring of 1993 to ask students to work in this new venture in the area of oral history. A year later in February 1994, Dr. Musallam was invited by the Friends of Bethlehem University in Ireland to spend a week at University College Dublin’s Center for Celtic Studies and Department of Irish Folklore where oral history is central in their programs. I had a chance to visit elementary schools where Irish students played an important role in the collection and preservation of their history and heritage. I also listened to a collection of Irish Celtic folk music that were collected by Irish individuals. These and other experiences left a long lasting impressions. I could see both Irish and Palestinian quest for independence. The units under analysis, these were the first attempt at the collection of oral history by my History 132 students who were English, Sociology and Social Studies major. At a later stage of my project in 1994, 1995, 1996 and henceforth I asked students to read “steps of Research in Oral History,” pp. 20 – 65 of a book on oral history of the Intifada.[5] Thus, this study of Spring 1993 forty interviews by Faculty of Arts majors were done by non-history majors and their guide, Dr. Musallam, was not a professional oral historians. Thus, there are short comings in these analysis.

VII.I. World War I (July 1914 – November 1918) Historical Context of the Proposed Study of the Memories of Palestinian Arab Elderlies

Bethlehem in the Years of World War I (July 1914 – November 1918) and Palestinian Arab Political Agitation, 1917-1918

The conquest of Southern Syria (Palestine) by the British-Egyptian expeditionary force under General Allenby in 1917-1918 ushered in an end to the disastrous war years in which the population had been diminished by war, famine and disease. From October 1914, when the Ottoman Turks officially entered the Great War on the side of Germany and the other Central Powers and until September 1918, when the Ottomans were totally ousted from Palestine following their 402-year rule, the country experienced unfortunate developments. The stringent martial laws which accompanied Turkey’s entry into the war arena were further tightened following abortive attempts by Jamal Pasha to inflict defeat on the British in the Suez Canal area in 1915 and 1916. Jamal, the commander of the Ottoman Fourth Army Corps in Syria (including Palestine, Lebanon, and Sinai), also tried to use the leadership of the clandestine Arab nationalist movement in Syria as escape goats for his failures on the military fronts. Jamal’s policies led to the arrest, trial and execution of prominent nationalist leaders in 1915-1916. As a result the voices calling for Arab independence became more credible among the masses.

The maintenance of large Ottoman forces during the war years necessitated, inter alia, forced military conscription, forced labor to build roads and railroads, confiscation of foodstuffs and other essential material from the inhabitants, and the mutilation of the Palestinian landscape as a result of indiscriminate cutting down of woodlands for military purposes. Infectious diseases brought into Palestine by Ottoman soldiers, furthermore, created an intolerable situation among the civilian population. If wartime miseries were not enough, the situation was further complicated by natural upheavals. The infamous 1915 locust invasion of Palestine caused the total destruction of the grain crop. The year 1915 in the memories of the elderlies is known as year of the Locust (Sanat Al-Jaraad). The late Mr. Sulayman Abu Dayyeh, the Principal of Beit Sahur’s Lutheran School in 1915, gives a vivid account of the Locust invasion of the Bethlehem and Jerusalem areas on 8 March 1915. Schools were closed, students and teachers were asked by the Ottoman authorities to collect the locust and its eggs beginning the 23 May 1915. Each Jerusalem resident was asked to provide 5 kgs. Of the locust’s eggs while each Bethlehem’s resident was asked to provide 20 kgs of the locust’s eggs. Beit Sahur was asked to provide forty persons to collect the locust and its eggs. Those who could not deliver the required amount bought the remaining amount from those who managed to collect locust and eggs in the bushel.[6] The rainless season of 1916 and war related disasters brought commercial, agricultural and educational life to a standstill and brought starvation, disease and death to thousands, 1915-1917.[7]

Bethlehem, as the rest of the communities in the area, did not escape the disasters of the war years. The British Deputy Military Governor in charge of the Bethlehem sub-district provided an eyewitness account of conditions in this biblical city upon British occupation in December, 1917: “It looked empty at first. For several days the natives hid themselves… when they did come out of hiding we found only the remnants of Bethlehem’s normal population. Locusts, typhus and Turkish paper money had thinned them down frightfully, and there were Turkish deserters, orphans, and starvation all over the place.”[8]

The Allied military heads of the newly established Occupied Enemy Territory Administration, South (OETA, South) in Palestine, thus, had as their foremost task the providing of essential human services until a decision was reached on the future of Syria by the Paris peace Conference. In the meantime, normal life began to return to Palestine following the singing of the Armistice in November 1918. In Bethlehem, life began to return to normal two years after British occupation. The Ottoman military trench “zigzagging like a white hair across the far side of the Rahib valley” on the south of the town, and the British military presence were the only visible signs of the war years. Otherwise, as a British military official observed in 1919, the ancient town had been “miraculously … scrubbed and scoured and whitewashed.”[9]

Reconstruction and return to normal were not an easy task for Bethlehem’s residents, especially since the town’s economic bloodstream, tourism, had been at a standstill since 1914. With the encouragement of British officials and the aid of Bethlehemites from the Diaspora, financial aid averaging $12,500 a month began reaching the town. These and other funds were handled by the Bethlehem Charity Commission, which was organized in March, 1918 under the leadership of a local notable and a one-time emigrant, Mr. Khalil Dakkarat, to provide medical and food relief in the community. At the same time, basic city services were restored when the town municipality was permitted to resume its activities under Mayor Saleh Jacaman.[10]The miseries of World War I (1914 – 1918) were now intertwined with the increased tempo of the Arab-Zionist struggle for Palestine.

In the meantime, agitation began to ferment in Palestine among Arabs and Jews as result of the controversial November, 1917 Balfour Declaration. On April 4, 1918, when northern Palestine was still at the mercy of Ottoman troops, the Zionist Commission created by the Middle East Committee of the British war cabinet and composed of leading world Zionists under the leadership of Chaim Weizmann, arrived in Palestine. They aimed, among other things, to put the Balfour Declaration into effect and to act as a link between the Jewish community and the British military.[11] within a few weeks Arab speakers in Jerusalem were heard calling on the Arab nation “to wake up, and to rise up in defense of its land, of its liberty, of its sacred places against those who were coming to rob it of everything.”[12]

On November 2, 1918, the Zionist Commission was permitted to lead a large Jewish procession through Jerusalem to celebrate the Balfour Declaration’s first anniversary. This only angered the Muslim and Christian Arab inhabitants. The following day an Arab delegation, the nucleus of the future Muslim-Christian Society, was permitted to march to the government house to protest against the alleged Zionist designs on Palestine and the “assumption that Palestine was to be handed over to any one of the three religions practiced by its inhabitants.”[13] A few weeks later, similarly worded Arab petitions from throughout the Arab communities were forwarded to the British Foreign Office, and President Woodrow Wilson and the Paris Peace Conference. In the petitions, the Palestinian Arabs pointed out, inter alia, the following: “the country is ours and has been so of old … the number of Jews does not exceed at the highest estimate one-eighth of the number of the natives, and their land possessions are not more than three percent. Does justice then allow the violation of the rights of the majority?”[14]

VIII. Findings: Traumatic Events in the World War I Memories and Students Interviews / Spring 1993

“Traumatic Events” in World War I Memories of Palestinian Arab Elederlies are those experiences in the memories which were caused by sudden shock or terrible experience or by deeply and unforgettably shocking experience,[15] and which became deeply rooted in the memories and oral traditions of the Palestinian people. For example, due to the lack of basic food, like bread, people during World War I chased after soldiers horses, looked for waste of the animals, picked the barley from it and cleaned it, made flour of it and baked bread for the starving family members from it. This traumatic experience has been told and retold from one generation to another generation until the present day. Yes, I was told of this traumatic event by my grandmother Rougina Khalil Salman Musallam in my childhood years. She made me aware of World War I years and was influential in my pursue of oral history after her death.

The outbreak of World War I (in July 1914 and Ottoman declaration of War in late October 1914 against Russia and its Western allies) was a traumatic event by itself. Stringent martial laws were declared throughout the Ottoman State including it Arab provinces and all basic goods and services including bakeries came under the mercy of the state and its soldiers and their war efforts. Ordinary cities were stripped of civil liberties and opposition to state policies was considered a sedition and liable for public hanging.

The maintenance of large Ottoman forces during the war years necessitated forced military conscription. Thousands of Palestinian young people were shipped to the various fronts never to be seen again. The author was told of his young maternal grandfather, Nichola Khalil Yousef Musallam, who never returned to his young wife and three children after being shipped to a war front; and so was the author’s oldest paternal uncle who was shipped to the Suez front and was killed there.

The author was also told by his late father, Ayyub Musallam Ya‘qub Musallam, that the author’s parental grandfather, a building contractor in the Karak area of Transjordan at the time, Musallam Ya‘qub Musallam, died in 1916 of the widespread epidemics (Cholera^*, Typhus^**, and small pox^***)[16]

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Maysoon Salaymah reported in March 1993 that senior citizen Hanna Ya‘qub Salama Nassar, born circa 1919, learned of war years, 1914 – 1918, from his father Ya‘qub Salama Nassar and others about starvation as a result of the year of the locust (1915) and the rainless year that followed (1916). Starvation led women to fetch horses’ and mules’ excrements, dried it, picked the barely from it, clean it and took it to a Beit Jala mill to make flour out of it so the starving family members could eat.

Maysoon Salaymah also learned from Mr. Nassar that starvation led people to fetch bones of animals, grinded them into fine floury texture, added water to it, mixed it and baked the resulting flour and ate it. According to Mr. Nassar the starvation led people to dub it as “the year of the Mother of Bones.” Mr. Nassar pointed one of the most benevolent rich men of the Bethlehem area who served food for soldiers and distributed charities to the poor was Sulayman Jacir, the original owner of the present Jacir Palace Intercontinental, this big mansion that was used to feed the starving and the poor during World War I.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Sufyan Ash-Sharif interviewed in March 1993 Mahmud Isma‘il ‘Abd Al-Rahman Abu Shkheidem, born in 1899 in Hebron, who reported that the locust invasion in 1915 had destroyed everything including the figs, Accordingly, children were covered from head to toe with clothing fearing the locusts will poke and eat the children’s eyes. Starvation led people to kill and eat the locusts, the size of each locust being the size of a hand fist.

Anyone owning three kgs of barley was considered well off. People would stand in long lines in front of bakeries to get three loaves of bread, one for breakfast, one for lunch and one for dinner.

Starvation led people to search for orange peels. A story tells that a person followed a Turkish soldier from the Haram area (Al-Aqsa) to Ra’s Al-Joura so he could get the peel of the orange in order to eat it. Instead, the Turkish soldier ate it.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Asma’ Jaber interviewed in March 1993 her grandmother Husniyya Shihadeh, 89 years old, who lived in Qalandia Refugee Camp having been earlier a resident of Nablus. Husniyya pointed out that she only remembered that “we could not find a thing to eat or drink.” She added that she was carrying a cooking pot (qidra) and was going to fetch water from a nearby spring, when she heard the city’s public announcer (munadi) informing people of the incoming locust invasion . Wave after were of locusts invaded the area and they ate and destroyed agricultures and trees. Husniyya added that water was polluted and those who drank from it were infected with the Cholera epidemic. She was an eye witness to the death of three members of the same family. The rainless year 1916, she added, soil was hardened to a degree that farmers could not till the land.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Mahmud Hassan ‘Adawi interviewed in February 1993 ‘Abd Al-Majeed Al-Kawamleh, a native of the uprooted willave of Zakariyya in the Hebron District in 1948, who was born in 1915 and currently is a resident of Al-‘Arroub Refugee Camp, in the Hebron District.

Mr. Al-Kawamleh told a story that was well known in Zakariyya. It reflected starvation in the years 1915 and 1916.

A Turkish government tax collector visited the village during starvation years. And it was customary to feed him and his horses. But this time there was not food in the village. After searching, the people in Zakariyya learned that a resident Muhammad Al-Qaisi had a lamb and he agreed to butcher it so the villagers can prepare the food for the tax collector. But the people of Zakariyya were in dire need for bread that must be served with the cooked lamb meat and its soup (mansaf). The people began searching for the needed bread. Following long search, families in the village were able to collect twenty loaves of bread and presented it to Al-Aqaisi’s house who were preparing the mansaf. In the meantime, Al-Qaisi hid the loaves until dinner time and he had to go to an outdoor water closet. During his short absence his hungry household members found the hidden loaves and ate them. When Al-Qaisi returned he found what his household did and became very angry and started cursing and shouting at family members. And he gathered all village notables and told them of the problem. But there were no loaves of bread to be found. The villagers finally found a man who lived at the edge of the village who owned some barley. They promised to return the barley to him in the upcoming planting season. He agreed.

The barley was grinded and the flour was made into dough and baked into bread by the women in the village. When the Turkish government tax collector arrived the mansaf of bread, soup and cooked lamb was ready and his horses were fed.

And after he left the village, the tax collector did not realize the trauma that the villagers had to go through to prepare food for him and his horses.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Kifaya Khaled Khalil D‘eis interviewed Muhammad Khalaf Muhammad D‘eis, in March 1993 (no exact dates recorded). Muhammad D‘eis, a resident of Jerusalem / Shu‘fat lived through World War I. Starvation prevailed. Anyone owning bread and water was a king.. people were dying of hunger… and they would go to the wilderness and mountains to search for wild vegetables to eat like “Khubezza”. But the locusts ate everything. Children begged for food from soldiers and collected the thick orange peels. And they begged soldiers to let them eat the food of camels and donkeys, like barley.

Some Germans would give them the bones remaining from the cooked meat. When Germans would leave, people would go the their camp to collect the remains of their food. Muhammad D‘eis added that the Turks made people collect locusts and their eggs in order to burn them and to kill them but to no avail. People used to barbeque and eat the locusts out of starvation. He told the story of how his mother carried dried figs… When a starving soldier saw her, he wanted to kill her but his uncle’s wife interceded and took the figs and gave them to the soldier.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Nisreen Abu Leil interviewed Mariam Muhammad Musa Abu Leil, 86 years old, born circa 1907, in Jerusalem. Mariam spoke about the Year of the Locust (Sanat Al-Jarad), that is 1915. Every family was asked by Turkish authorities to collect 6 (six) kgs. of locust eggs in sacks that were provided by authorities. Locusts were everywhere… to the point that people would walk over them. Everyone who was born in 1915, was born in the Year of Locusts. The following year, 1916, poverty became wide-spread to the point that people would search for barley in the animals’ remains. She added that orange peel was of special value to starving people who would walk a long way to fetch these peels.

In the meantime, small pox and cholera epidemics spread… sixty people died from one extended family… The Faraj family… Human corps were all over the place.. and the government would spray these corps with white plaster (sheed) powder.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Hiyam Fu’ad Khalil Harb interviewed Jubra’il Habib ‘Ayyad of Beit Sahur on April 1993. He lived through World War I.

Jubra’il pointed out that the year of the Locust was impossible to forget… for three years people would not find even green olive leaves. Turkish military ordered people to dig eight meter deep holes to dump the locusts in them. However this did not work. Locust would lay their eggs inside these holes and would then spread. Jubra’il said that in Wad Al-Jamal in Beit Sahur the ‘Ayyad and Al-Atrash clans would fight over the remains of the horses and cows from which to extract barley. Some would trade six kgs. of the cleaned extracted barley with three kgs. of the regular barley.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Wa’el Zakariyya Al-Rishq interviewed Mustafa Ibrahim Maz‘aru, born in 1902, in April 1993. Mustafa lived in ‘Anata Al-Jadida / Jerusalem.

Mustafa pointed out that starvation led people to fetch dead animals: camels, donkeys, mules and would skin them and barbeque them and eat them, the lucky ones were those who would find dead animals to eat. He mentioned how a Turkish soldier ate the sole of his shoes which was made of cow’s skin out of starvation.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Ra‘eda Saba Qa‘bar and Enas ‘Abed Bsessi interviewed Muhammad ‘Elayyan ‘Abd Al-Qader Abu Laban, born early in the 20^th century in the uprooted village of Zakariyya, the Hebron District, in 1948. The interview was carried out in March 1993 in the Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem.

Mr. Abu Laban said that people would escape from their lands to avoid taxes and tax collectors or out of fear of forced military conscription. Starvation led a villager to follow a soldier peeling an orange hoping to eat the peel that the soldier would throw away.

Mr. Abu Laban did not know what a shoe was until he got married. His father bought him shoes on his wedding night. He added that people in the village did not know what soap was except rarely – women would use stones to clean clothes. He added that red soil was used on wounds until it healed. Also coffee was used. Mr. Abu Laban said that villagers heard about bananas from stories but were not familiar with it.

The same above BU students also interviewed in March 1993 Muhammad Shhadeh Abu Diab who was born in 1905 in Al-Khader, the Bethlehem District.

Mr. Abu Diab said that agriculture was the basic source of living: People were poor and their only source of living was raising lambs or planting grape vines. He added that there were no teachers at the time. Teachers from Morocco or Egypt would come over to teach.

He added that the village clan leader (Mukhtar) and notables helped in the military conscription by providing Ottoman military authorities with a list of names of candidates.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, ‘Annan ‘Abd Al-Jawad Al-Natsheh interviewed in March 1993 Shaker Muhammad ‘Uthman ‘Asi from Beit Liqya in the Ramallah District. He was 105 years old, born circa 1888.

According to Mr. ‘Asi young people would run away to the mountains and when caught they would be beaten badly; forced conscription in Ottoman armed forces was difficult. Military did not have mercy and treated people like slaves. Work was difficult and food rare. Many of these conscripted never returned from the fronts. Those who refused conscription, death or hard labor was their destiny.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Kifaya Khaled Khalil D‘eis (mentioned earlier) interviewed in Spring 2009 Muhammad Khalaf Muhammad D‘eis, a resident of Jerusalem / Shu‘fat who lived through World War I.

Mr. D‘eis uncle was a forced Ottoman conscript. He was beaten and was taken by force. He went to Gaza and was wounded… His wife rode a donkey to Gaza to bring him back since he was the only source of support for her and their children. Conscripts who returned were few.. and were weak and physically unable to do a task.

Mr. D‘eis added that Turks used to come three or four times a year to gather young conscripts and to search for escapee (fararat), when caught, escapee were beaten badly.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Usama ‘Abd Al-LAtif Al-Jawabreh interviewed in June 1993 Saqer Abu ‘Ayyash, from Beit Tummar in the Hebron District.

Saqer related a story he heard from his father. Those who ran away from forced conscription were called collectively “fararat”. One of those was ‘Amer Abu Mariyya. When Turkish soldiers surrounded the village to catch all escapee, ‘Amer Abu Mariyya wore new clothes, new shoes and new tarboush pretending to be the head sheikh of the village clan (Mukhtar). He invited Turkish soldiers to his home to eat and sleep and he convinced Turkish officer in charge to permit those who ran away (fararat) to return home safely to which the officer agreed. This way ‘Amer Abu Mariyya, instead of going home to prepare food for soldiers, was able with his fellow escapee to slip away from Turkish soldiers and to keep running.

The same above student also interviewed in Spring 1993 Salem Muhammad Sweilem Al-Jawabreh who was uprooted in 1948 from the village of Iraq Al-Manshiyya but who resided in Al-‘Arroub Refugee Camp. Salem was 90 years old, born circa 1903.

According to Salem Al-Jawabra clan in Iraq Al-Manshiyya was the largest and Jibril Khalil was the head sheikh of Al-Jawabra clan who was at odds with Salem Suweilem, his father and uncle who belonged to other branch of Al-Jawabreh clan.

The above Jibril was unhappy to learn that his rival Mahmoud Suweilem was not conscripted. Jibril told Turkish soldiers that Mahmoud was an escapee from military service. Mahmoud on his part told the Turks that his brother Muhammad replaced him as conscript because of his sickness. Upon returning from the war front, Muhammad told his son Salem Suweilem about his traumatic experiences as a conscript in Yemen.

According to Muhammad, Arab conscripts would die from starvation, thirst and the heavy loads they carried on their backs. Conscripts were so hungry that Turkish officers told them of a dead donkey. Conscripts raced each other to eat of what was left of the dead donkey. Muhammad ran away along with many young people from the military service. But many died on the way.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Hala Al-Dissi interviewed in Spring 1993 her 87 year old grandfather, a carpenter who lived in the old city of Jerusalem, Ishac Ibrahim Al-Dissi.

According to Ishac Germans (allies of Turks in World War I) were bad.. they went after girls. Men at that time were conscripted as early as 14 years old. Those who escaped the conscription would be treated harshly and Turks would even hang them.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Asma ‘Jaber (mentioned earlier) interviewed in Spring 1993 her 89 years old grandmother Husniyya Shihadeh, a former resident of Nablus, who eventually lived in Qalandia Refugee Camp.

Husniyya mentioned that there was only one way to avoid forced conscription, that is to get married to a girl from a distant area who could not live alone without a husband and family. Thus, her husband was not conscripted as a result.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Nidal Mahmoud ‘Allan interviewed in March 1993 ‘Abed Ahmad ‘Abed Abu D‘eis, 12 to 15 years old during World War I. Abu D‘eis was from the uprooted village of Al-Malha in 1948 and was a resident of Bethlehem at the time of the interview.

Abu D‘eis said that Sheikh Muhammad Darwish and other clan leader of Al-Malha, Mukhtar Hussein Mahmud and the Turkish military would gather young men for conscription. Many young people would escape the conscription but soldiers and village sheikhs and clan leaders would pursue and fire at escapee.

The same above student interviewed in March 1993 Dheeb Musa ‘Abdallah Barhoom who was born in Al-Malha in 1922 and who heard about the war from village gatherings. Barhum mentioned that his father was 16 years old during the war years. He related that when Turks came to gather young men for military conscription, his grandmother and aunt made his father wear women clothing. And he sat with the women grinding wheat. Turkish soldiers did not notice him and left. Clan leader (mukhtar) of the village did not inform Turkish soldiers about him. Most men in Al-Malha were conscripted and were sent to Egypt and Yemen. However, most never returned.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Jumana ‘Awad interviewed in May 1993. 87 years old ‘Ali Al-Shareef (Abu Ahmad) who resided in Hebron and later in Dura, in the Hebron District.

Mr. Al-Shareef pointed out that at the beginning of the war people thought of the war as a game and a big celebration. At the beginning young people would be conscripted with their own free will and thought that the war was for their best interests. But things changed as a result of forced labor and hardships and young people stopped joining the military. As a result Turkish soldiers began to take by force youngsters, 16 years old or above, for conscription. He remembered seeing eight people hanged on the gallows because they were escapees from the war fronts. There was no time limit for service in the military. It could be for a year or two or for ever.

Germans also were in the country. Few camped in Hebron. They raised pigs and ate pork. They brought along with them cars. And it was the first time that the people saw a car in their lives.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Rana Nasser Al-Din interviewed in April 1993 Rasheed Ibrahim Rasheed Al-Samman who was born in 1910 and who resided in Jerusalem / Shu‘fat.

Mr. Al-Samman mentioned that a person would be conscripted at the age of 16 (sixteen) for three years. No one was able to avoid this forced service. Those who escaped were hanged or tortured. Following three years of service a conscript had to pay 50 liras of gold in order for him to leave. Otherwise, he would stay in the service. The monthly pay for a conscript was two liras of gold.

Asked if he preferred the present with all the available gadgets and conveniences or the past when people died of starvation and diseases. Mr. Al-Samman preferred the past because people found security and tranquility. There was the spirit of love and giving unlike these days when brothers do not care about each other. We cannot go at the present from one place to another without a military permission (tasreeh). Our freedom is suppressed. However, I hope that peace will prevail soon.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, ‘Adla Salama ‘Ali Zawahra interviewed in February 1993 eighty years old (80) Muhammad Yousef Saleh ‘Issa a resident of Bethlehem Fawaghreh Quarter.

Mr. ‘Issa said that people did not like the Turks because of their bad treatment of them. They conscripted people by force. His grandfather Ahmad was conscripted twice and was shipped to Yemen. However, he escaped and returned home walking from Yemen to Palestine. When escapees were caught Turks would send them to far away places. Escapees then would serve and cook for the Turkish soldiers.

Starvation spread with the outbreak of the war due to the locusts, dirty water and the lack of food stuff. When a person would have a piece of land that was tilled and grew produce, Turkish soldiers would come and expropriate it by force. And if a person stored food stuff for his family, Turks would come and expropriate it and send it to army.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Maysoun Sulayman interviewed in February 1993, eighty seven years old ‘Issa Jalil Al-Sayeh (Abu Jalil) a resident of Bethlehem.

Mr. Al-Sayeh spoke of the forced conscription. Conscripts were sent to the war front. He was only ten years old. He learned that his father and two uncles were conscripted but did not return home. He saw with his own eyes a ranking Turkish officer beating on an Arab soldier who was carrying vegetable (faqqus) that the latter bought from Al-Sayeh and his mother. Officer kept beating the soldier until the latter died.

Turks would gather all men, even retarded ones, 16 to 60 years old for conscription. Those between 18 and 35 were sent to the war fronts. Those 40 years and older were put to work to open roads or dig trenches. Safar Barlak (an infamous Turkish word) meant the shipping of conscripts to the various war fronts.

Everything was expropriated for war purposes.. donkeys, sheep.. they took everything by force.. and they said it was for war purposes… And when the British occupied the land the people were semi dead.. people would fetch the remains of the British soldiers’ food. People welcomed the British because of all hardships they experienced in Ottoman times.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Nizar Abu ‘Awwad interviewed in March 1993, ninety years old Muhammad Hassan Musallam Abu ‘Awwad who lived in Al-Fawwar Refugee Camp in Hebron.

Abu ‘Awwad related the story of starvation. He used to till the land with the help of a mule from sunrise to sunset. The land was rocky and the mule eventually died of fatigue. It was very dear to his father and Abu ‘Awwad was afraid to tell his father about the death of the mule. Instead, he cut the dead mule into pieces and distributed its meat to the clan and sent a portion to his own house. After dinner the father asked his son about the tilling of the land. Eventually, the latter told his father how the mule died of fatigue and how he slaughtered it and how his father ate its meat. The father started screaming. He became very sad because there were only three mules in the village.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Shireen Dajani interviewed in April 1993, eighty five years old Mustafa Muhammad ‘Awad Karawi from Al-Tur/ Jerusalem who was at Al-Maqasid Hospital.

Mr. Karawi related a story concerning starvation. It was reported that a camel died at the Bethlehem / Beit Jala intersection (Bab Al-Zqaq) near present Hussein Government Hospital. When the people from the Bethlehem area heard the news, they all went to the place where the dead camel was located. Unfortunately for them they arrived too late only they find the remains of a skeleton that smelled very badly.

Diseases spread, many children, women and men would die daily from the many epidemics of cholera, typhus, tuberculosis. People did not have the time to burry their dead. Al that time there were no medicine, doctors or hospitals.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Ibrahim Al-Qudsi interviewed in March 1993, one hundred years old Shehadeh Sulayman ‘Abdallah Shaheen, a resident of Shu‘fat / Jerusalem.

Mr. Shaheen related the story of his escape from forced conscription. At that time he lived with his family in Sabastia, in the Nablus area. Turks would gather young conscripts in railroad carts. At that time railroads were run by coal. But since the outbreak of the war the coal was replaced with wood coal. Therefore, the speed of the railroad was slower. As conscripts rode the slow railroad and as they reached a curve, they jumped and hid themselves from the Turks for a long time. The Turks did not return to search for them, the escapees (fararat).

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Rania Hanna Nasser interviewed in April 1993, ninety two years old Elias ‘Issa Ghattas, a resident of Bethlehem.

Mr. Ghattas was eighteen years old when Turkish officer came to his house abrupt while his mother was baking. The officer was screaming and asked young Ghattas and his twenty years old brother to follow him only to find out that there was a gathering of youngsters from the neighborhood who would be conscripted into the Ottoman military. Many of the youngsters were tilling the land before that when the orders of the military came.

Mr. Ghattas served for four months only and was working in the kitchen when the military encampment was hit with artillery. He was wounded and was permitted to go back home.

Mr. Ghattas’ young sister died during the many epidemics. His mother did not know what was the cause of her death.. Typhus spread.. many died. The strong was able to service. Mr. Ghattas did having lost two sisters and a brother in the war.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Suzi Francis ‘Isa Al-‘Ama interviewed in March 1993, Sulayman Saleem Sulayman Sabat, born in 1910, resident of Bethlehem.

According to Sulayman Sabat young people hid themselves from forced conscription in covered underground wells for two or three days. It was related by interviewee that one person hid himself in the well for a whole year. When this latter got out from the well he passed away after few days due to the many diseases that he became inflicted with because of the one year of hiding in the well.

There were some groups that were not conscripted because Turkish military considered them stupid and not normal. They dubbed them “Janaka”.

Mr. Sabat remembered war tears and starvation when he and his friends fought for the peel of an orange. They heard about bananas but never had a change to eat it.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Muna Al-Sabarna interviewed in February 1993, her grandmother Tarafa Ramadan Ikhlawi Al-Sabarna, who lived through World War I. She was a native of Beit Tummar, the Hebron District.

Tarafa pointed out the extent of starvation in war years. She related the story of a soldier from her village who fought in the Gaza front. His companions died in that war. He was starving and was searching the clothes of the dead hoping to find something to eat despite that these dead were covered with blood. In one of dead’s pocket he found a piece of bread covered with blood. He ate it.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Waseem ‘Azar interviewed in March 1993, ninety years old Hanneh Hanna Mikha’il Awwad, a native of Ramallah.

Hanneh pointed out that after the Turks began to withdraw from the Birzeit road and the entry of British troops to Ramallah via the Jerusalem road, the people welcomed the British with much festivities and joy. Young people went to the roofs of the homes raising white sheets.

When the Turks saw this festive reception accorded the British, they began to hit the town with artillery rounds. Some residents were wounded. This reception to British signaled the end of the miseries of war years. Also the British brought with them canned food, rice, sugar and other food stuff that was badly needed.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Hanadi Yousef Al-Hawari interviewed in April 1993, Hussein Nassar Nassr Al-Salamin, born in 1905, in the village of Sammu’ in the Hebron District.

According to Al-Salamin forced conscription began at the age of eighteen. Rich people were able to buy their way so no children of theirs would be conscripted. Many of these young conscripts ran away. However, when caught by soldiers these escapees would be beaten badly or executed. The dead would then be thrown into the deep underground wells. These wells can be found these days like the Well of Locust (Bi’r Al-Jarad) near the Olive Bridge (Jisr Al-Zeitoun). That vicinity is know as the Execution Area (Mantaqat al-I‘dam).

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Adib Sa‘d interviewed in March 1993, Isma‘il Muhammad Awadallah Al-Rassi, 83 years old and a native of the 1948 uprooted village of Ra’s Abu Ammar. He was a resident of Al-Khader in the Bethlehem District.

Concerning Safar Barlak (shipping conscripts to war fronts) was preceded by Turkish search for conscripts. They would come first to the village head (Mukhtar) to ask for his help in finding those wanted for conscription. If the mukhtar refused, the Turkish military would then go from house to house in the village looking for conscripts. However, as soon as the Turks started looking for the latter, many of the young people would escape to the nearby mountains. When escapees were caught, some would be taken by force to war or would be shot.

Turks told the people that they were taking conscripts to fight the British who were killing Muslims and spreading corruption in the process. The British were infidels and the Turks were fighting for Islam.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, ‘Abd Al-Qader Sa‘ida interviewed in Spring 1993, with Ma‘ruf Al-Masri, 107 years old, a resident of Ras Al-‘Amud in Arab Jerusalem.

At an early age Ma‘ruf lived with his family in Amman (Jordan). He attended school that had only one teacher, a Turk whose name was Shawqi Bey (title). Turkish language was imposed. All had to speak Turkish. Those who spoke Arabic were kept in school all night. Shawqi Bey was from Istanbul and he taught Qur‘anic studies, geography and history. Students grades result at the end of a semester were sent to Istanbul.

Age of conscription for the war went from 18 to 17 then to 16 until it reached 14 years old… Cities were emptied. You could see only women and men over 60 and under 14. The family with one child was exempted form conscription. The family with two young people, one of them was conscripted. The other paid 200 Ottoman lira for exemption.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, Maysa’ Abu Sway interviewed her 84 years old grandmother ‘Aisha Yousef Mustafa Jabir, in Spring 1993. ‘Aisha was born in Shu‘fat / Jerusalem.

Concerning starvation in the war years, ‘Aisha told of a person who paid twenty golden Ottoman liras for a piece of a donkey’s meat. Another person found a dead donkey. He and his friends ate it. But since the numbers were large, this person only had a small piece of the dead donkey. And in other incident, it was told that a lady had some flour, made a dough and managed to bake four loafs of bread. As she was leaving to go home, a group of youngsters saw her and stole the loafs of bread from her.

Bethlehem University (BU) student, May Sayyad interviewed in May 1993, Muhammaed Yousef Saleh Abu Al-Hawa, born in 1912, a native of Al-Tour / Arab Jerusalem.

Mr. Abu Al-Hawa was three years old in 1915 when the Turks came and conscripted his father Yousef Saleh Abu Al-Hawa. His father Yousef left the family a milking cow and then was shipped to the war front never to be seen again.

Illiteracy was widespread at the time. If one wanted a letter read to him, he had to walk from one city to another in order to find someone who can read the letter. Schools were rare. Those found were known as “Katateeb”, a one room classroom in which a sheikh would teach readings and religious studies (including the memorization of the Qur’an).

In addition to the many examples that the above student interviews indicated, the war years witnessed the further deterioration of Arab-Turkish relations which added greatly to the miseries of the local Arab population in Palestine. Jamal Pasha, the Ottoman Fourth Army Corps Commander in Syria (Palestine, Lebanon) and the Sinai found in the Arab nationalist leadership an escape goats for his military failures on the Suez Front. He accused the Arabs in 1915 and 1916 of pro-Allies activities; his policies led to the arrest, trial and execution of 800 leading nationalist leaders from throughout Syria. These executions by public hangings took place in the main squares of Beirut, Damascus and other major Syrians towns. His persecutions became paramount and bloody as the Arabs finally joined the Allies in the war in June 1916. So the Palestinians, as the rest of Syrians, had to carry another burden to the many burdens they had carried such as starvation, diseases, forced military conscriptions and death.[17] Thus, World War I years was indeed full of traumatic experiences for all sectors of Palestinian society.

[1] Interview about oral history with Adnan Musallam, Submitted by Toine van Teeffelen, 08.05.2006, Palestine-Education Net

[2] See Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Radio National, “The Struggle of Memory Against Forgetting,” 20 January 2008. (With academic experts and historians from Australia, Europe and the United States), pp. 1-4. Quoted from page 1.

[3] See, for example, Keith Whitelam, The Invention of Ancient Israel, The Silencing of Palestinians History, New York & London: Routledge, 1996.

[4] Rosemary Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasant ot Revolutionaries, with an introduction by Noam Chomsky, London: Zed Press, 1979, pp. 64 – 97.

[5] Who Makes History? The Oral History of the Intifada: A Guide to Teachers, Researchers, and Students, by ‘Adel Yahya, Mahmud Ibrahim and Thomas Ricks, Al-Quds: Tamer Institutio for Soceity Education, December 1994. In Arabic.

[6] See the One Hundred Jubilee of the Beit Sahour Lutheran School, 1901 – 2001, pp. 145-146.

[7] Cmd. 1499. An Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine, London, 1921, pp.1-3; and Aharon Cohen, Israel and the Arab World, London, 1970,pp. 112-117.

[8] Clair price, “”Bethlehem under the British,” The Living Age, vol. 305, no.3962 (June 20,1920), p. 630

[9] Ibid., p. 627

[10] Ibid., p. 630

[11] Palestine Papers, 1917-1922. Seeds of Conflict, compiled and annotated by Doreen Ingrams, London, 1972, pp. 20,21

[12] Ibid., p. 24

[13] Ibid., p. 34

[14] Ibid., p. 47

[15] For the meaning of “trauma” and “traumatic” see Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, printed by the Librairie du Liban Special arrangements with Longman Group, U.K. 1990.

[16] * Cholera: infectious disease which attacks the stomach and bowels, and often leads to death.

** Typhus: an infectious disease, carried leg lice and flees that causes severe fever, very lead headaches, red sports over the body, and nervous sickness.

*** Small pox: a serious infectious disease causing spots which leave marks on the skin.

See Ibid.

[17] For an excellent account of World War I miseries, see V. Lutsky, The history of the Arab Countries, pp. 438-439, 440-443, 452 in Arabic; and see One Hundred Jubilee of Beit Sahur’s Lutheran School, 1901 – 2001, pp. 145 – 150.