Nakba #53 - Subhia Salman al-Natur

1939 “My father was a farmer and we had cows. He sold the milk. My mother was from the city, from Jaffa, so she never milked the cows—neither did I. My father died when I was three years old. At that time my mother had just given birth to my little brother, Khalil. When I was a girl, Mahmud, my older brother, did not allow me to go very far from our house. He was a difficult person. The only time I was allowed to leave the house was when I accompanied my mother to visit her brother. In the village there was a school for boys. Teaching took place in a tent. One of my brothers suggested that I should also attend school, but I refused to go to a boys’ school. Besides, I had become the tallest in the class, and I did not want that. Most of the time I stayed at home, helped my mother, cooked, and washed dishes.” 1948 “We heard gunfire between Jews and Palestinians in Sarona, a nearby village. I later heard that the Jews took some young men and shot them out in the fields. Our mukhtar explained that we had to leave Salama, but that we would be able to return after a week or so. Mother decided that we should leave. It was me, my sister—who was pregnant—and my two brothers. We walked on foot through several villages: Sakija, Kafr Ana, Cheirija, Bayt Dajan, Kibja, and Shabtin. We were hungry. We had only a small piece of bread to eat each day. We took water from wells. The water was full of red insects, which my mother strained out between her fingers. We walked for maybe a month—I don’t know. In the end we reached Ramallah. From there we were transported by trucks to Nablus, where we stayed for two months. We slept under the open sky; we had no tent, nothing. Sometimes it rained. Then we were taken to a guesthouse in Askar. They arranged a tent for us in the Askar refugee camp. Later they built a room for us. It was so cramped that my mother slept leaning against the front door. My sister and her husband took over the tent. There she gave birth to a son. He died shortly afterward.” 1954 “When I was 18, I married a man who was 43. He asked my mother and my brother for permission to marry me. We had never met before we got married. It wasn’t like today (laughs).” 1977 “During Ramadan, my son Jihad had the task of walking around the Askar refugee camp to wake people up well before dawn. The Israeli army had been searching for someone in the camp but had not found him. Instead, they spotted Jihad. First they shot him in the leg. Then they killed him. According to the hospital report, he was shot 82 times. When I heard the first shots, I began to scream. He was 23 years old. I visited his grave every day for two months. One night I was sitting on the edge of my bed when Jihad suddenly appeared. I saw him coming toward me together with another man. We embraced and kissed. I said, ‘My son, my love, my son, my love.’ He said nothing. Then he disappeared again. He appeared once more. That time he was riding a white horse in the fields of paradise. After I told others about his second appearance, he stopped appearing to me.” Reflection – Who bears responsibility for your situation? “I don’t know.”