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Hello, my name is Nitsana Bellehsen
Today is June 21, 2011,
I am interviewing Dr. Avraham Levy,
in the Old City of Jerusalem.
On set with us
are cameraman Ofer Aldubi,
soundman Oni Elbar,
producer Alyona Bass
and Dr. Levy's grandson, Tomer... -Tomer Lavi.
Please begin by telling us your name
and where you're from.
My name is Avraham Levy.
I was born in the Old City.
I lived here until the age of 7 years and 3 months.
What year were you born?
1941. February 1941.
Please say that in a full sentence.
I was born on February 9, 1941.
What were your parents' names?
My father's name was Yosef, my mother's was Miriam.
Where did your parents come from? How did you settle in the Old City?
My parents were born in Israel.
We are the 12th generation in Israel on my father's side,
with the evidence to prove it.
My father was born in Hebron, my mother was born in Jerusalem.
Where is your mother's family from?
My mother's family was born in Israel,
just like my father's.
I mean in the distant past.
In the past. We are descendants of Jews
who were expelled from Spain in 1492
and who wandered until they reached Israel.
What was known as Palestine at the time.
Why did your family settle in Jerusalem?
Was there some reason they came here?
The settlement at the time was very small.
The options were sparse.
Jerusalem was one of the few places they could live in
and it was a holy city,
a city that attracted Jews from all over the world.
We are taking a tour with you today.
If you can...
Today we are here
so that you can show us your childhood Jerusalem.
Where would you like to begin?
I'd like to begin from where I was born.
It's not far from here.
It's by the parking lot we will go to.
Okay then, after you.
Where are we going?
We're going over here, by the parking lot. -No, but...
This is Ha-Yehudim Street. -Yes, what do you remember of it?
I'll get to that, okay?
We'll leave that for later. -Sure.
I have a coin in my hand,
I will drop it on the ground
and I am quite sure that my bed was where the coin just fell.
The building where I was born was here.
After the Six-Day War,
the Nachum Arbel gallery was here.
The building was used as a gallery for many years.
Until a decision was made to expand the parking lot
and the building was destroyed.
So the building is no longer here
but this is where my bed used to be.
We can go, if you want.
Okay, but before we do,
I want to hear about... -The house. -What was it like?
We can do that in the shade, right?
Yes, but before that, let's...
From the beginning? -Yes, if you don't mind.
Are you ready?
Please continue telling us about the house from this place.
Right now?
But he comes here...
Okay. -I'll tell you when.
Not yet... now.
We are here because I wanted to show you
the place I was born.
I will throw this coin on the ground,
I think this is exactly where my bed used to be.
The building where I was born was here,
after the Six-Day War
it became Nachum Arbel's gallery, the painter.
In time a decision was made to expand the parking lot
and they decided to tear down the building
to that end,
so the building no longer exists.
But I wanted to show you the exact spot where I was born.
Describe it to me.
Sure, we can move to the shade or do you want me... Can we?
Sure, whatever you want.
I'll think we'll be more comfortable in the shade.
Okay? -Yes, after you.
Just tell me how you want me to stand.
This is good for me.
I lived at 1 Ha-Yehudim Street.
1 Ha-Yehudim Street.
It was the first building
at the entrance to the Jewish Quarter.
The building had three levels.
My family lived on the upper level,
the Levy family.
The Hazan family lived on our floor.
That was the upper floor.
The Mizrachi family lived on ground level.
And the Cohen family lived
on the lower level, where the cistern was.
We were three families
that included around
30 or 40 people,
who lived in the same courtyard,
used the same toilet,
used the same cistern,
and drew the water from it on summer days.
The water was accumulated during the winter
and drawn in the summer.
So this was a building with three levels,
a main courtyard, where the residents gathered
to eat sunflower seeds, to eat oranges, to gossip,
to argue, to sing together,
it was the daily gathering place.
Describe to me... -Yes.
What do you want me to describe?
Describe one night in this building.
One night?
I can describe an evening to you,
the herd goes through the center of Ha-Yehudim Street,
with bells ringing,
bells ringing,
and my mother calls me to come inside.
Obviously she had to clean off
the dust that stuck to me
and make my dinner.
Before bedtime I'd usually drink cocoa,
the family would gather
and everyone would talk about the events of that day.
My father used to come home very tired
and she made dinner for him as well.
Shortly after I had to go to bed,
I had a hammock, by the way,
when I was little I slept in the hammock.
Later on I moved from the hammock into my bed.
What did the hammock look like?
Bedtime was always accompanied
by lullabies in Ladino.
When I was younger
my mother would sit on the floor,
stretch out her legs,
put a pillow next to her feet.
I'd lie down on her legs
and she'd move them right and left
and sing the lullaby to me
and that's how I fell asleep.
Later I slept in the hammock
and then I moved to a bed.
Those are my bedtime memories.
What did the hammock look like?
It was made of metal,
with metal engravings.
My father was a blacksmith.
He made the hammock for me.
It was a fine hammock made of metal,
with a mattress that swayed from side to side.
I liked lying in it and listening to the songs.
That's what I remember.
How many people lived in your house?
Ours?
We are a smaller family
than the standard Sephardic families.
In addition to my father and mother
we lived there with my two sisters, my brother and I.
But that was for a very short time.
Very quickly. There is a big age difference
between me and my older siblings,
so very quickly my siblings moved out.
My brother was a guard in the police force,
my sisters married at 16
and went with their husbands.
So it was only me.
I was the only child who grew up in this house
for quite a few years.
I was a spoiled little boy
because I was alone and I got all the attention.
Can you describe the inside of the apartment you lived in?
The what? -The inside of the house. -The inside, sure.
If you can,
though we're standing in the parking lot right now,
I'd like you to create an image for us
of what was in this parking lot.
That will take all day.
But you asked me to describe the house, right?
Okay. The room I slept in,
I had that room
all to myself.
I used to share that room with my siblings
but when they left, I had the room to myself.
There was a bed, a hammock,
there was a ledge near the window
where I could sit on a mattress and look outside.
We didn't have a TV, radios weren't common.
So one of the pastimes was looking out the window.
There was a closet in the room too
that was used as storage
for food and kitchen devices
and as a so-called fridge.
There was a dense mesh in the upper doors
that enabled the flow of air into the closet
so if we had to preserve things
so they wouldn't spoil,
that was one of the places they stored the food.
The doors of the room were made of wood,
they had a big dead bolt
that could be locked from the inside
with a large metal key
with which we opened and closed the door.
Also...
That was about the doors,
thick wooden doors that could be closed.
In the winter we had a small oven
that we could light a fire in,
like a small grill,
in which we would light coals.
In the winter we sat around this oven,
sometimes we ate chestnuts,
sometimes we warmed up bread for toast.
The smell filled the entire room,
the small room.
Those are memories I miss very much.
There was a small, wide courtyard
and my parents' room
was on the other side of the courtyard.
The fact that we had a room for the children
and another room for the parents
was considered a luxury.
It was a room only my parents used.
The beds were made of heavy iron with heavy mattresses.
Pictures adorned the room, images from the Hagaddah.
From diverse Haggadahs.
There were curtains made of a delicate, pretty fabric.
They overlooked this exact spot where we're standing.
My parents' room
overlooked this parking lot where we are standing.
My room overlooked Ha-Yehudim Street.
There was a small kitchen in between the two rooms,
and it was very crowded,
there was barely room for more than one or two people.
My mother stood there from morning to night,
that's what she did all day.
She made the meals for the entire day.
There was a water tank in the courtyard
because there was no running water in the Old City.
We had to bring the water
or buy the water,
and I'll show you where we bought it from.
Sometimes we had to draw the water from the cistern
that was in the house.
There was a tank with a small tap
and a bowl underneath
that was situated on a metal bipod
and we used that to wash our hands,
to wash our face.
There was a similar device in the kitchen
for washing dishes.
So you can imagine
how often we had to go down there every day
to fill the bucket, fill the tank,
go downstairs when the tank was empty and fill it up again.
Who did that?
The entire family.
My mother, my father sometimes,
my siblings,
I hardly did it because I was too young.
Describe this place we're in.
This is an enchanting place...
Show it to us.
Show us. -Sure.
I can stand under the tree...
You can walk around if you want.
This place where we are standing
looked totally different in the past.
It was one of the lungs of the Old City.
The houses inside were crowded.
They were right next to one another.
The courtyards were very dark.
The space between the houses was very narrow.
There was very little room to play.
So there were two places in the Old City
that gave the residents room to breathe.
One of those places is where we are standing now,
the Sephardic Hakura.
The Sephardic field.
This place was known
as a place
where the Sephardim gathered.
The Ashkenazi Hakura is inside the Old City.
That was another place where people could breathe,
where they could play and gather
and spend some leisure time.
Those were the two lungs of the Old City.
I was lucky, I lived at 1 Ha-Yehudim Street,
right next to this place,
so most of my childhood,
and obviously I will only tell you about my childhood,
because as I said, I was 7 years old.
So I'm not telling you what others remember,
most of what I'm telling you
is not based on stories I was told
but on my own memories
that remain hidden in my mind
since I left this place
after the War of Independence.
I will describe this place,
what it used to look like
and what happened here.
As I said,
this place was the lung of the Old City,
one of two lungs of the Old City.
In terms of the structure,
this place was narrower.
It was expanded after the Six-Day War.
As I said, some of the buildings were torn down
so this place looks bigger now.
The ground was paved, it wasn't paved back then.
This was a dirt field.
Let's see
what structures were here at the time.
Let's start with my house which was here.
It was right on this street.
Behind me are the last homes
of the Armenian Quarter.
Therefore, all the homes you see here
belonged to Armenians.
They weren't torn down nor were they touched.
They look more or less
the same way they did then,
before the War of Independence.
There was a courtyard here,
I think it is called Niger's courtyard to this day.
Niger was a cheese maker, he made cheese and sold milk.
I think his family still owns this place
and it might very well be that they still make cheese.
Moving on
we reach the southern segment
of the Old City wall.
Before this segment,
there were buildings that are no longer there.
They weren't residences,
they were what we call in Ladino, I speak Ladino,
"Casa Zrutas - ruined homes.
These were buildings no one lived in.
They were ruins.
As children we used them in the winter
to go inside and light a bonfire
and warm ourselves by the fire.
Moving along,
there was a bus station here.
Let's go there instead of talking about it.
Look in the direction of what used to be your home.
Okay.
We're getting closer to the place
that was the Old City bus station.
It was a small station,
people stood here
and there were two buses.
One of the drivers was called Jack
and the other was Salim.
Jack was a chubby, older man
and Salim was very well kept with gel in his hair.
They were the bus drivers.
One bus would arrive
and the other would leave to go to the New City.
So this is where the buses entered and exited
the Old City.
This was the station.
Just so you get an idea of what I'm talking about,
the buses weren't big and spacious like they are today,
they were as small as matchboxes,
small buses.
Each bus had very few seats,
sometimes two benches across from one another,
and people sat across from one another
or sometimes in seats
which were one after the other.
The buses were small.
The bus drivers were like family.
The relations were very friendly,
sometimes people brought the drivers something to eat or drink,
we knew them by name, they knew all the people,
there were pats on the back, smiles,
they were like family.
That's another reason why this place
was so central and so important.
When did you or your family
take the bus?
Whenever we wanted to go to the New City.
Today it's a two-minute drive away,
but at the time it was far,
it was too far to walk.
If we wanted to indulge ourselves and not go by foot,
we took the bus.
Sometimes if we had to go to the hospital,
or shopping,
sometimes to meet friends or relatives,
the buses were very convenient
for all the residents of the Old City.
Did only Jews take the buses?
The buses served all populations.
Anyone who wanted to could get on the bus.
Did you take the bus alone or were you accompanied by family?
I was too young to go by myself.
Usually I went with my parents or siblings.
Do you remember how much it cost?
I'm not sure,
but I think it was two mils.
I think that's how much a ticket cost.
Two mils, that's a copper coin.
One mil was half the size.
Two mils was a coin that was almost double in size.
Do you want to see more buildings? Okay.
There's a place here
that was very significant in the Old City.
It doesn't exist today.
That's the matzo factory.
There was a large building here
that was the matzo factory.
There was also a tannery
so it was usually very smelly.
They processed leather and dried it.
There was a carpentry shop
where they made small wooden souvenirs
like the camels and all the items you're familiar with.
They made them here.
When this place was under siege,
it was bombed by the British.
My aunt lived here, my father's sister.
What place are you referring to?
The building.
The building that used to be the matzo factory.
In addition to being a matzo factory,
as I said,
it was also a tannery
and a carpentry shop.
This was a very special place for me
because my aunt lived there with her family.
It was blown up during the battles
and the ruins were cleared away. It doesn't exist.
But it's a building that illustrates
how central this place was
in that regard too.
Because there were no buildings such as this in the Old City.
Usually they were outside,
in an area where they could be built in a large space such as this.
Why did your aunt live
in a place that was commercial?
The homes were very crowded in the Old City.
Wait, let's finish this...
Not everyone had the luxury
of choosing a spacious, beautiful, clean home.
People chose to live in places that were cheap,
where the conditions may not have been that convenient,
but the price was low.
I imagine that was one of the reasons.
When you were a child here,
can you show me...
I want to go to a building that means a lot to me.
I'll take you there.
It's one of the most significant buildings in the Old City.
For me, at least.
This building... May I begin?
This building that you see
is the Talmud Torah School, the Sephardic Boys School
where I only got to study for one year, regretfully.
I lived here
and the school was here.
Only an arm's length away.
A walk away.
From my house to school.
We'll take a break now...
In this plaza near the wall,
there is nothing here now,
but in the past there were ruined homes,
what we called in Ladino
"Casa Zrutas," ruined homes.
People didn't live there,
we used them in the winter
to light fires and play,
to play hide and seek,
to run after one another,
this was our hiding place,
we gathered there
and created a group-like atmosphere during the winter days.
They're no longer there
but they existed back then and we used them.
Now, if you could,
take us back there. You are 6 years old.
There are children around and you're in that house.
Describe a specific day for us, what exactly went on.
Let's take a winter day, for example.
Outside it's windy and raining,
children don't want to stay home, they want to go outside.
There is nowhere to hide
or hang out in.
So we went to this place.
It was not easy gathering wood
but we found some branches here and there,
we made a small pile, lit the branches and sat around
and played games and talked.
Sometimes we roasted potatoes.
It was our hiding place
on rainy days. That's just one example.
How many kids were there with you?
Usually 10 or 15 kids.
Children from the neighborhood who gathered in this place.
Were there boys and girls? Describe the children to me.
Usually boys.
Usually boys.
Maybe some girls joined us every so often,
but as far as I recall
we were a group of friends my age
and we used this place.
When you say friends,
can you be more specific...
First of all the neighbors who lived in my building,
and I told you there were many children.
Younger than me, my age, older than me.
There were children in the nearby buildings too
and we all played together.
Were you mainly Jews?
Only Jews.
Mainly Sephardim? -Yes.
I lived in a place
where most of the residents were Sephardim.
There were Ladino speakers,
there were Kurds, Urfals, Yemenites,
Moroccans, known as Mugrabis at the time,
not Moroccans, God forbid.
It was a place that was comprised of all the ethnic groups of Israel.
The children were from those families
and we played and studied together.
Later, when we were exiled to Katamon,
we went to the same school.
We were also in the same youth movement.
What did the inside of the house look like?
The ruined houses?
They had arches
and what was left of the building were the supporting, external walls
or the arches.
Inside there were piles of dirt.
We could play there or sit there.
That's all there was.
Shall I show you some more? -Wherever you want. -Okay.
Let's go.
Though the Jewish Quarter housed mainly Jews,
and the shops and commerce were run by Jews,
it wasn't purely Jewish.
There were also shops that were owned by Christians
and Moslems.
Take the bakery on Ha-Yehudim Street.
It belonged to a Moslem.
A Moslem built a building on this site that was called the Bader building.
It doesn't exist anymore.
He started building it right before the Jewish Quarter fell.
I remember it was built from chiseled Jerusalem stone,
new and bright, not like the buildings in the Old City.
It was a very attractive building
and it was supposed to be a commercial structure.
Sadly, it doesn't exist anymore
and it's hard to show you,
but it was an elegant, beautiful building,
unlike what we were used to seeing in the Old City.
They brought the chiseled stones to this plaza
and we sat on them, played on them, jumped over them.
It was a central location. There was dirt here, sand and gravel.
I remember the construction
that gave this area a special atmosphere
and we used it as a place to play and gather.
I want to go... Maybe I'll show you the place.
As I said, our house no longer exists.
The house across the way doesn't exist either.
If I remember correctly,
the Old City health clinic was in the house across the way.
One of the nurses was Masha Weingarten,
the daughter of Rabbi Weingarten, the Mukhtar of the Old City.
What I recall, as a child,
is a very special day.
There was a large crowd of people
and the members of the underground entered the clinic
and tried to arrest Masha
who was suspected, along with her family,
not of being collaborators
but of being more lenient
towards the British rule,
the British Mandate.
Some of the underground members
thought they were collaborators.
I don't think that was the case.
But I remember that day,
when they said people went in and tried to arrest her.
That's a childhood memory I can't forget.
Did you see them trying to arrest her? -No.
I just remember the gathering downstairs
and the talk on the matter.
Do you remember what people said?
Sure. I just remember
it aroused a lot of curiosity and a lot of interest,
it was unusual, after all.
There was a lot of gossip about the Weingarten family.
I think some was inaccurate and untrue.
But that's what some people thought.
That's why the incident
aroused a lot of interest at the time.
You said they came to arrest her and there was a crowd.
What exactly did they do?
I don't know. I only heard about it.
I didn't see what happened, I only heard
they covered her mouth, blindfolded her,
something like that, I don't know the specifics.
Do you remember when this happened?
During the time of the curfews.
When this place was closed.
There were groups of Jews,
some of which represented different factions
like the Etzel, the Lechi, the Hagana, the People's Guard.
At times these groups didn't agree with one another
and sometimes they didn't cooperate with one another.
You said quite adamantly that you don't think it was true. Why?
I know the family,
I think they did a lot for the residents
and gave this place a boost.
They were leaders here.
I think some of the talk was inaccurate and untrue.
Sometimes people are wronged.
Do you remember Masha?
She was a beautiful woman.
Very nice, pleasant, friendly.
I saw her every so often
because I lived nearby.
I remember her fondly.
Tell me about the clinic.
People went there to get first aid treatments
like an injection or ointment or to bandage a wound.
There were all kinds of infections.
It was a time when people couldn't maintain proper hygiene
in a place that was so cramped and there was no running water.
Obviously there were many diseases,
children's diseases in particular, scabies, lice, ringworm.
All kinds of diseases that required treatment.
Did you ever have any childhood disease?
Yes, once.
Someone threw dirt in my eyes
when we went to play at the ruined houses.
As we were playing, or perhaps we were arguing,
someone threw dirt in my eyes
and I got an eye infection
that didn't go away for a very long time.
That's an unpleasant childhood memory.
I'm sure. How were you treated?
We went to a doctor outside the city.
An eye doctor outside the Old City.
What can you tell me about this place?
I'll just finish this. -Okay.
There were two stakes
next to the entrance to our house.
They formed the boundary
between the Hakura and the entry to the Old City.
At certain times,
vehicles could not enter the market and the Old City.
So the stakes were lifted.
These stakes would stop the traffic.
When vehicles were allowed in,
they'd remove the stakes
and vehicles could drive through.
Carts or other vehicles.
These stakes also served the British.
The British soldiers stood here
and monitored the goings on.
I remember a Scottish military company stood here.
We were very curious as to what they have under their kilts.
We were told there's nothing there.
We were very intrigued.
How could we find out what they have under their kilts?
We put a small mirror on our sandals,
and approached them nonchalantly
to see what's under their kilt.
I don't remember if we discovered anything,
but that was the story.
You don't remember?
Those were the British soldiers that stood here.
Now I'll tell you about this plaza.
Wait, where was this, can you show me?
The two stakes, yes. -Which?
Two stakes that looked like these.
They looked like these.
More or less in the same place.
The stakes were further apart
to enable passage. They weren't so close together.
What kind of things went through?
Carts, vehicles
that brought goods into the Old City.
What kind of vehicles?
Pickup trucks or carts that brought goods in
or took goods out of the Old City.
This was the entrance.
This was the gate, though there was no actual gate,
this was the gate to Ha-Yehudim Street.
Don't forget, this was 1 Ha-Yehudim S treet,
this was the entrance, this is where the Jewish Quarter began.
Now I want to tell you
about this plaza.
Why it's so interesting
and so important.
Earlier I called it the lung of the Old City,
because we played here
But it was also a gathering point.
I don't know if any of you were in Morocco, in Marakesh.
In Marakesh there is a huge plaza,
larger than this,
and at a certain hour,
it's as if an invisible hand calls all the people
and everyone gathers at 4pm
and the empty plaza becomes very crowded,
with many people
who go there to do business.
Something similar...
By the way, in Morocco it's called "Jamaa el Fna,"
that's the huge plaza in Marakesh.
For some reason I am reminded of that plaza
because it reminds me very much of what happened here.
Not only did children play here
but people gathered here too.
Among others,
various tradesmen used to come here.
Tradesmen.
Some people shook the cotton of the quilts.
The cotton got stiff
and in time the quilts had to be shaken and aired out.
So people came here, usually Arabs,
who offered their goods to the Jews.
Usually they came with their apparatus,
which was a wooden apparatus with a long string
and they'd enter the courtyards,
spread out a large blanket in the yard
and shake the cotton out of the quilts.
This is how families renewed their blankets once a year.
Knife sharpeners used to come here.
Knife sharpeners.
A man who had a wheel
that activated a grinding stone
and anyone who had knives would go to him every so often
and he'd sharpen the knives on the spot.
Sometimes they came to the courtyards, but this was the gathering place.
Other tradesmen came here as well,
like people who sold soos and tamarind.
These are drinks the Arabs made.
They had a large container of ice,
a large container made of copper.
There was water inside
and they added ice and dates
and the tamarind vendor used to lean the container on his shoulder,
he was a very skilled tradesman.
He'd hold a glass in one hand and pour the drink
from the container into the glass.
It's not something just anyone could do,
only if he was an expert.
Like I said,
the circus came here too.
Yes, indeed, there were circuses too.
Sometimes Arab gypsies came here.
They came with monkeys
or with a bear.
Sometimes they just played the flute or played the drums.
We used to stand around them.
We had to toss them a coin
and we sang: "Urkud, urkud, ya saadan..."
meaning, "Dance, dance, you clown," to the monkey.
He'd play the flute or make him dance
and we were very happy.
Another thing that was here
was a cinema.
Not a cinema as we know it,
but a man who came here with two reels,
what's known as a silent movie.
He came with two reels
and there was a film on the reels
with different pictures.
Whoever wanted to watch a movie
simply put his eye up to the cart,
the space was dark and there was a light that was projected onto the picture.
He turned the reels
and we saw the movie.
We paid a few cents.
That's another thing we did in this place.
All the people gathered in this place.
I was lucky to have lived here
and I could experience all of this.
There were less pleasant experiences as well.
We discussed the British and the siege.
Often they did something called Taftish.
They'd decide to do an inspection
or impose a curfew.
If the Lehi or Etzel or Hagana harmed them at night,
they'd impose a curfew in the morning, round up all the people,
inspect them one by one
and interview them one by one.
As you can see, the sun is beating down on my head.
That's how it was then. People sat here a whole day
I remember my sister was pregnant
with her first child.
She lived in the Old City
and she was forced to sit here a whole day in the sun.
I remember my mother was terrified,
anxious and worried about my sister
who had to sit here a whole day
in harsh conditions.
So this is a place the British used too.
It was also a soccer field.
There is nowhere to play soccer in the Old City.
This was where they played soccer.
Who played soccer?
Not only Jews.
The British soldiers played too.
The British soldiers played soccer here
and since I lived at 1 Ha-Yehudim Street,
the ball often landed in our yard
and I swiped it from them.
They used to look for it, and...
I guess they're looking for it to this day.
So this is where they played soccer
and there was nowhere else to play,
except the Ashkenazi Hakura, as I said.
Those were the two fields in the Old City.
It's hard to forget childhood experiences.
These experiences stay with me.
I don't think I discussed them often in the past,
except for now,
but the more I talk,
the more the thoughts, the memories, the longing surface.
I miss those days a lot.
We want to...
I want you to show us the places,
but I have a question about your sister.
Can you tell me more in detail...
I have pictures on me, if you want.
Do you want to film the pictures?
I have a picture
that was taken when I grew up here.
I was here until the age of 7 years and 3 months.
Here's a picture of me and my mother from those days.
You see? One picture.
Another picture... I told you that my siblings
were older than me.
There was a big age difference between us.
I grew up alone at home for a large part of my life.
My siblings, Yehuda, of blessed memory,
Hanna, of blessed memory and Sara, may she live a long life,
those are my 3 siblings I told you about.
Hanna is the sister I told you about
who was pregnant
and on the day of the curfew
the British sat everyone down in this plaza, including her,
and she sat in the heat for hours,
and it was not pleasant at all.
Why did they detain your sister?
Usually there was a curfew after something happened the night before
and the members of the underground harmed someone or did something
that the English didn't like.
So in the morning, they searched the homes,
searched for weapons, obviously, written material, posters,
and when they didn't find anything, they were very frustrated.
So they imposed a curfew. They rounded up all the Jews,
fenced the area, guarded it
sat everyone down and inspected and interviewed everyone,
to make sure they weren't accomplices to whatever took place.
But why your sister? What happened?
They weren't targeting her. She was just one of all the people.
Just like they detained my parents, they detained her too.
Were your parents there that day? -Of course.
Everyone was detained, to check and make sure
they weren't involved in what happened that night.
There was a different incident every time.
Were you ever involved in what happened? -Yes, yes.
My brother was a Hagana member at the time.
My brother-in-law was in the Etzel.
My brother-in-law lived here.
My brother lived with us from time to time.
There were nights
that the underground gave out flyers through the window.
The window overlooking this plaza.
At night, an anonymous hand would slip in a flyer through the window
that said such and such is about to happen
or that we are required to conduct ourselves
in such and such manner.
We'd read the flyer
and I remember it was instantly burned
and the ashes were thrown into a tub,
so there'd be no remnant of the flyer.
My father was in the People's Guard, of course.
My brother, as I said, was in the Hagana.
My brother-in-law was in the Etzel.
The entire family took part in what happened here at that time.
Why did they decide to join the People's Guard or the Etzel?
Various reasons. Due to his age and occupation,
my father was more suitable for the People's Guard.
He wasn't a member of the Hagana.
Later they joined the Hagana.
My siblings, who were in their late teens,
like many youths at that time,
were influenced by political factions.
So they joined them.
Then they became zealous
about those ideas and that ideology
and they acted on their behalf.
That was the story.
Most residents identified with one faction or another.
What did you think?
I was a small boy.
I don't think I had political opinions
that I could present.
I don't think I had concrete opinions then.
But I was a part of what went on around me,
the tension, the commotion, the interest.
I was part of that life.
Don't forget we lived in a generation
in which the children of the family
were an integral part of the family.
We didn't sit at the computer, disconnected from what's going on.
We were part of the experience.
There were not many rooms
where one could stash the kids
so they couldn't hear what was going on.
We were part of everything that went on here.
We were very much involved.
Maybe that's why the memories are so preserved.
You asked me earlier
how I remember these things down to the last detail.
I must admit,
most of the things I'm telling you
are things I experienced
and I remember them because I was part of them.
My memories aren't merely based on other people's stories.
I was here until I was 7.
When I turned 7 someone cut the ribbon
and I began a new life in Katamon.
Meaning, a segment remained in my memory's archive
that can't be eradicated.
It's like the memory of a computer,
that is fixed, yes,
and every time I wanted to access it,
I merely searched for it and reached it.
Sadly, for 19 years this place was occupied by the Jordanians
and all we could do was go up to Mt. Zion,
that was the closest place from which we could observe
the Old City.
So for 19 years we were detached.
How did this detachment affect you?
Very, very, much.
I think the detachment for me, as a boy,
was very traumatic.
There's a lot of talk about the Holocaust, and rightly so,
about what so many Jews went through.
But I think in some ways,
the individual can also go through his own personal Holocaust.
Yes, a personal Holocaust.
I think that as a child
I experienced this personal Holocaust process.
The falling of the Quarter and everything that happened that day
were very traumatic for me as a child.
If we proceed further in,
I'll be able to convey to you some of my childhood experiences
that were very traumatic and which accompany me to this day.
I think part of the fact...
I didn't tell you this but I'm a social worker by profession.
Sometimes I ask myself, as people often do,
what attracted me to social work.
Just like a doctor surely asks himself
why he wanted to deal in medicine,
or an actor asks why he wanted to act.
I think I wanted to be a social worker
because of the harsh experiences I underwent here as a child.
Those horrible moments that I went through,
and not only me,
that all the children my age went through,
and all the people who...
Is there anything else you want to say on this subject?
I'm saying these experiences weren't erased
and they undoubtedly impacted my choice of profession.
People who went through such horrible experiences
are often open to the experiences and hardships of others.
If you like, we can go inside.
I didn't hear you over the...
I said, if you want, we can go to Ha-Yehudim Street
and I will share some of my memories.
Yes. Before we do that,
we'll film some photos, take some intercuts
and shots in this area.