1948

“After the massacre in Dayr Yasin, which was a suburb of al-Quds, we were forced to flee. Most people were afraid of suffering the same fate. But my grandfather and his brother refused; they said they would stay and guard our house. The others arranged a couple of trucks for the family and drove us to al-Khalil. There were about 70 of us, and we arrived at two houses located in large groves. Some slept indoors, others outdoors.

Al-Khalil was considered the safest place in Palestine, a place the Jews would never reach. They had once been slaughtered there and therefore would not dare return. That was what the rumors said.

When the situation calmed down, the family returned to al-Quds, but not to our house in Abu Tor, which was still considered too dangerous. Instead, we rented an apartment with my cousins in the Haret al-Sadieh area, near the al-Aqsa Mosque. We could hear the call to prayer.

That year I got a little brother. We called him ‘the refugee.’

After living for some time in another apartment in the Old City, we eventually moved back to our house in Abu Tor. My grandfather and his brother had survived. We heard that some people had tried to break into our house to steal things, but they had been beaten back.

After the war, al-Quds was divided into a western part annexed by Israel and an eastern part annexed by al-Urdunn. The border ran through the Abu Tor neighborhood. Our house was on the Jordanian side, 300 meters from the demarcation line. My father lost his job because his workplace was on the other side of the border.

Along the border there was a no-man’s-land, with many abandoned houses. We made ugly faces at the occupiers, at the Jewish boys, and they made faces back at us. We could see and hear them clearly. A few times, a friend and I crossed the border and stole some newly planted trees. We were shot at, but we survived.”

1967

“The Israelis built a tunnel through Mount Jabel Mukaber, south of al-Quds, on the road toward Bayt Lahm. My friends were there throwing stones at the Israeli soldiers. I was not involved in that particular mischief, but I was still summoned for interrogation by the Jordanian police. It did not help that I insisted I had not been involved. The police did not believe me and only released me after bail.”

1950

“Al-Urdunn introduced a mandatory national guard force for all adult Palestinians in East al-Quds. Its task was to guard the border with Israel at night. There were posts every thousand meters. Guard shifts lasted between six and eight hours, and the task was to stop any Arab planning sabotage against Israel. I often made tea and brought it to my father so he could stay awake.

Al-Urdunn had equipped him and his friends with old rifles and the occasional machine gun. When the shift was over, they were not allowed to take the weapons home. They were handed over to a Jordanian superior who locked them away. Al-Urdunn never paid my father for guarding the border every night. The Palestinian home guard was merely a show put on by al-Urdunn, all to appease the Israelis.”

1961

“I became a Jordanian citizen when I was 16. A couple of years later, I received a scholarship to go to Sweden. And that is how I came to Sweden and ended up in a refugee reception center in Malmö.”

- Min pappa Jerry föddes 1939. När han var sex månader övergav farfar familjen. De sågs aldrig igen, säger Mattias Sackrén.

- Pappa kom att jobba med reklam, bland annat åt sin morbror, Nathan Sackrén, som startade klädkedjan Hollywood på Götgatan 54-56.

- Min pappa var född i Sverige och vi bodde på eleganta Östermalm. När jag kom till judiska lekskolan så minns jag att de här föräldrarna såg annorlunda ut, dom såg liksom rädda ut och kunde inte tala ”riktig” svenska, säger Mirjam Ettlinger Frajnd.

1945

“My mother milked the sheep and sold the milk in ‘Akka. Just a few days after she had given birth, she started working again.

Our house was always full of people. We had enormous wedding celebrations. The bride wore a white, glittering dress. The bride and groom rode forward on a white horse and we followed them, singing songs. In the song for the groom, we sang that the barber would shave his beard with a golden razor.

My mother fell ill and died. Then my father married my mother’s sister.”

1948

“One day, when my aunt as usual was baking bread and then spreading the finished loaves out in the room, the army attacked our village and some soldiers entered our house.

‘Either you leave here or we will kill you,’ the soldiers said.

We immediately left our house and fled barefoot. The bread was left behind in the house.

Many people were fleeing. My father brought our sheep with him. We passed through Druze villages and asked for food and water. There was no time to stop so that the sheep could graze. Half of the sheep died of hunger along the way.

My father cut up the meat and shared some of it with the other refugees.

We arrived in Srobbine, in southern Lebanon. There my older sister died. The flight had terrified her. She felt pain in her chest and her heart stopped beating. She was 18 years old. We were forced to bury her in a cemetery for non-believers.

In the end we reached the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut.”

Afterthought

“My daughter died less than a year ago. After that I got several infections on my body—on my arm, my hand, and my eye. After several treatments, only this infection on my cheek remains. I have been like this for seven months now; my cheek burns.

Here in the Shatila camp I wake up broken. I get tired even after sleeping. Back in Palestine everything felt holy, even the sand. If you touch the ground you are comforted. The smell of the cucumber in my home village used to break my heart. Palestine is my lover.”

1946

“There were some Jews living in my village, and we were friends with them. In Akka there were more Jews. If I got sick, I used to go to a Jewish doctor in Akka named Nathan. As children, we did not distinguish between Christians, Muslims, and Jews—we were friends.”

1948

“The Jews began attacking us with heavy artillery, just to scare us. Then the aerial bombardments of our village began and people started to flee. Some families refused to leave Tarshiha; they hid with their neighbors, who were Palestinian Jews and Druze. Some of the children and grandchildren of those who hid are still living in Tarshiha today.

There were about twenty people in my family who fled toward Lebanon. We loaded as many mattresses as possible onto one of our horses. I was barefoot, and I was given a pair of shoes, size 42. I was a child. I rode the horse for a while, then I got down and started running barefoot. I remember it clearly. We walked ten kilometers. I was afraid. My parents tried to calm me, but deep down they were also afraid. We were running to escape death.”

– Who was it that drove you out?

“The Jews, but not the same Jews we knew before. These were Jews who came from outside. I saw dead bodies lying in the groves.

After crossing the border into Lebanon, we came to Ayta ash Shab. We ate the food we had brought with us. We continued on to Aleppo in Syria. There were seven of us in the family, and we lived in a barrack. The rooms were three by three meters and were divided with blankets. If someone had sex with his wife, everyone could hear it.

The Nakba took everything from us. The only thing we had left was to study at school. I was good at my studies, but in order to study I had to go outside—there was no space indoors. I remember once in winter, when it was cold and snowy. I had to go out into the cold and sit on the snow to study. I was in the fourth grade.”

2015

“The first exodus, from Palestine, was very hard, but it helped us survive the second exodus, from Syria to Sweden. When I was 74 years old, in 2015, we were forced to flee from Syria to Turkey, crossing the mountains on foot. From Turkey we took a rubber boat across the Aegean Sea to Greece. There were 44 people in the boat; it was approved for a maximum of ten. Then we continued through Macedonia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Denmark, and finally to Sweden.

For the journey to Turkey, my wife and I paid 30,000 kronor, and from Turkey to Sweden the same amount.

I am glad that Sweden took us in, but this is not my father’s house.”

1948

“The Egyptian army was supposed to defend the village, but when the Jews attacked at night, the Egyptians abandoned us. My mother, my older brother, and I fled into the darkness to a field where our cows and sheep were grazing. All the men stayed behind to defend the village, but when the ammunition ran out, they too were forced to flee. Two of my uncles were shot dead by the Jews. They were in a field and were both shot in the chest. They were shot because they defended their land. Later my uncles were taken to the village, and I saw their bodies. My mother and I cried. She continued to cry until the day she died.”

1945

“Behind our house there was a large fig tree. I used to play in the shade beneath it. Behind the house there was also a cave. My mother and grandmother gathered firewood there. They lit a fire and cooked food, fried eggs, and baked bread. My mother fetched water from a stream that ran near our house.”

1948

“We heard gunfire in the distance. It went on for several days, especially at night. Rumors spread that the Zionist army was in Bayt Safafa, a nearby village, and that they were probably advancing toward our village. I lay on my mattress, frightened. My parents told us to get up, that we had to leave. My father had to carry my grandmother on his back. She had panicked and could not stand up. She was also old and weak. My father carried a small sack of flour in one hand. I held his other hand. I was four years old. My eldest brother, Mustafa, carried a container of olive oil. My mother carried my little brother, who was ten months old.

Many families were fleeing. We walked until we could go no farther. Then we rested under the trees. When morning came, the gunfire had stopped. The men were then able to return to the village to fetch mattresses and pillows. We waited in the shade of the trees. My father returned the next day. By then someone had hired trucks that took us to ‘Amman in Jordan. The journey took a couple of days. I had difficulty understanding what was happening. I was in shock. I was silent, sometimes I cried. The only thing I understood was that the Jews had taken our land and our homes.”

2015

“Religious settlers took control of the stream that ran behind our house. The settlers used it for various religious rituals. At the same time, they prevented us and other Palestinians from going near the stream.”

Afterthought

“The Israelis never lived up to their promises. It was just ink on paper.”

1936

“My paternal uncle was 16 years old when he was killed by Jewish guards on horseback. They struck him on the head and he died the following day. My father’s employer, a Zionist named Dubel, offered my father a bag containing 10,000 pounds in banknotes as compensation for the murder of his brother. My father refused the money, but took four pounds from the bag and said: ‘With this money I will buy ammunition.’

A short time later, he and two relatives managed to set a trap for Dubel and his 16 bodyguards aboard his boat as it traveled through a canal surrounded by forest. My father hid in the woods and was only a few meters away from Dubel when he fired the fatal shot. The British issued a death sentence against my father, who was forced to go into hiding. A few months later, I was born.”

1948

“When I turned 14, I was allowed to carry weapons. I took part in capturing three Zionists. They were fishermen and had no right to be there. That is why my comrade and I acted. The Syrian border was one kilometer away, and it took us an hour to walk there with the prisoners and hand them over to the Syrian police. They were later used by Syria in a prisoner exchange.”

1967

“My village was located near the Syrian border on the Golan Heights. When it was occupied, we fled to the Yarmouk camp, outside Damascus. We could barely bring even a shirt with us. I joined the armed struggle and was trained as a commando soldier.”

1946

"We were farmers and grew wheat, olives, fruit and tobacco. Our tobacco was well-known, it was on a level with the Greek. We had different names for each area of land, depending on what we grew on it. Sometimes we slept in the fields. The land is our life, it is more important than the houses, better than working in a factory."

1948

"I was in fourth grade. We were used to the Zionists attacking us. We used to flee a bit away from the village and stay in an olive grove. When things calmed down, we returned to our house. We had received reinforcement from a volunteer Arab force from Syria. But after a while it got worse and the Arab force left us to our fate. We heard stories of how Jewish soldiers killed women and children in other villages.

I remember the planes that attacked the village. One of the pilots shot at a woman in a wheelchair. At the same time we were attacked on the ground by Jewish soldiers. Chaos and panic broke out among thousands of villagers. We fled on foot to Lebanon. We brought one of our horses and loaded some mattresses. I myself was wearing shorts. When we passed Safad we heard that the city had been occupied by the Zionists. Then we started running. We were attacked from the air and by Jewish soldiers on the ground. Even when we sat under the olive trees they came and shot at us. Some who returned to the village were killed. That's what we heard.

In Lebanon we sold the horse. We needed the money. We took a freight train from Tyre to Aleppo in Syria. At each station along the way, they emptied one or two wagons of refugees, so that not all refugees ended up in the same place. In Aleppo we were first placed in al-Nayrab, an old French military camp, which was next to the airport. Then we had to move into Aleppo. There we got to live in a building that had previously been a hospital."

Afterthought

- Doesn’t the feeling for your lost land disappear with the years?

“On the contrary, it remains, and we inherit that feeling from parents to children and grandchildren.”

- As a lawyer, do you want compensation for your lost land, or do you want the land back?

"I want the land (laughs). The land is a person's life. We don't sell any land, no houses. I am not a seller. I sell nothing. We inherit the land from generation to generation. I am still a refugee. I have no country, no passport, no rights. I don't know what happened to my schoolmates. I never got to finish fourth grade."

1948

"The Zionists killed my maternal uncle, Ahmed Shaban, and three others. They were shot in front of all the villagers. My uncle, who was perhaps 30 years old, was in the resistance movement, first against the British occupation, then against the Zionists'. After the executions, people got scared.

Half of my relatives fled to Syria, my paternal uncle fled to Jordan and we to Lebanon, on foot. The only thing we brought with us were the clothes we were wearing. I was four years old. During the flight, I heard gunfire and got scared. I wanted mum to carry me. My little sister started screaming too and wanted to be carried too. After al-Nakba my parents were sad."

1955

"In the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon I went to school. The teachers were very harsh. They hit us. Once I got a beating when I was standing outside the school smoking. I was eleven years old then. I was more scared of my teachers than of my parents. In the beginning I hated them, but then I understood that they wanted to take care of us. After school we used to go into Saida, a 20-minute walk. We pinched oranges from the plantations along the way. In Saida we went to the cinema. I liked everything with Omar Sharif and Faten Hamama. We were home again for dinner, at eight, nine.

My parents were offered to become Lebanese citizens, but they declined. They expected to be able to return to Palestine. Nasser and the Arab world promised that they would be allowed to return. They promised and promised. The Arab world is the Palestinians' worst enemy. It was a mistake to refuse to become Lebanese."

1961

"Me and my friends were politically active and organized demonstrations in the camp. We got in trouble with the Lebanese security police. Once a friend told a funny story that I laughed at. Then some Lebanese security police showed up and wanted to know what was so funny. We had to spend the night at their place. We were oppressed by the Lebanese security police. I left the refugee camp in 1964 and started at a UN school in Siblin, outside Saida. There, the Lebanese security police tried to recruit me as an agent. I would get 150 lira a month. That was a lot of money at the time. They would give me a pistol and promised to pay for my parties. All I had to do was snitch on my friends..

1967

"I was bullied by my Swedish colleagues. They imitated the defeated Egyptian soldiers who had fled barefoot through the desert.

One of them kept calling me a "fucking Arab". I took a stranglehold on my honor as a slut. To defend myself against the bullies, I joined the KPML(r)."

1995

"When I became a Swedish citizen, my family and I were able to go back to my home village. The only thing left was the mosque and the cemetery. The mosque was full of cow dung, so we started cleaning it. After that, six Israeli soldiers showed up and explained that there were too many of us in there.

"This counts as a demonstration," said one of the soldiers.

"It's not a demonstration, we're just cleaning the mosque. I'm a Swedish citizen and I was born in this village."

"Okay, don't let me go, don't let me go, let's say he left us alone."

Reflection

"At night I dream that I kill all the Arab leaders. I fly in a helicopter and shoot them. I hate them more than I hate Zionism. I respect the Israeli leaders because they take care of their own people."