ההקלטה נערכה במרכז למורשת יהדות בבל באור יהודה.
When I was in…the Anglo Jewish Association, they gave me the address of Hillel House. Hillel House was…they made houses of Jewish students with no contract. I arrived there […] they heard someone is coming from Iraq. A Jew has come from Iraq to Manchester. They imagined someone was coming from Mars. From…a different place. I mean Mars is…*from Mars. From another planet. Okay?* They welcomed me and so on.
One day later it was Friday. That was the first time…we weren’t religious in Iraq. So there was Shabbat, and they did Shabbat songs, and things…I liked it. One or two days later I went to university. I did…I enrolled, and finished the (relevant) things. And they gave me places to go to…where to live. Like apartments of students living in places.
I was a stranger and stuff. Here at Hillel House. A place of Jews and such. And by coincidence there was a spare room. This man said to me, “do you want to live here?”. I said, “yes. I’ll live here, and I’ll be able to meet friends…with something in common.” Jews - even if they were English Jews - but something in common. And I stayed with them for two years.
About three weeks later I was at that Hillel House. A call came for me. You know, in those days […] there wasn’t a phone (like now). The call would come via the exchange. They would call you and say, “you have a phone call”. I had a phone call from overseas. From another place. I answered the phone. Someone started talking in (the) Jewish Iraqi (dialect). (He said) “How are you Khudur? […] We heard that you left (Iraq).” I said to him, “who are you?”. He said to me, “I am your uncle! I am your father’s brother, Naim.” That was the first time I knew I had…that I knew I had an uncle Naim (on my father’s side). And I (also) have a (paternal) uncle Sḥāq, and I have…so on. But we didn’t have…I told you, we didn’t have any contact with them. They understood that I had left Iraq. And from one person to another, my telephone number got to them and they called me. So that was the first time I spoke to…to my uncle. Then another one came, and said to me “I am your uncle Ṣḥāq.” He also spoke to me. Afterwards, a woman’s voice came, a voice of women, and she started speaking to me in Hebrew. I said to her, “I don’t understand. I don’t know Hebrew.” She said to me, “I am your grandmother! Your grandmother, grandmother!”. Why did she speak to me in Hebrew? She has children here (in Israel). She has grandchildren. Okay? So she speaks with them…I mean, she speaks Hebrew with them. So I am her grandson. I am her grandson, so she also spoke to me in Hebrew. Those were…my first weeks in London…in Manchester. They said to me, “as soon as you are able…we want to see you.”
So it happened on the holiday of Pesach. I mean, after…*April*, three months after that. I took the plane from London to Tel Aviv. On El Al. I got off the plane…(and there was) a police car. One person in the army. And another…from the police. I…they said to me, “Khudur?”. I was in shock. It felt like going back to Baghdad. The fear of (living in) Baghdad came back to me. Army, police. Those people saw my face, shocked. They said, “no no! I’m your cousin, Sami! I’m your cousin, Shlomo!”. As in, my cousins!
They took me…in a Jeep. They escorted me to the entrance of the airport. I went outside quickly. And what do I find? One hundred and fifty people waiting for me. In the foyer of Ben Gurion airport. All of them were members of my family. My cousins on my father’s side, cousins on my mother's side, my father’s paternal uncles, his maternal uncles…all of it. From (just) us and my uncle’s family in Baghdad, here (in Israel) all of this was my family.
They saw…they saw my dad. They didn’t see me. Because when they left (Iraq) I…I was a little boy aged a year and a half old. My dad was also in his twenties - twenty seven (or) twenty eight. That’s how they found my dad coming down. Ok? After…outside of the airport, there were another hundred people waiting for me who were unable to enter the airport. So that was the first thing I saw in Israel. My extended family. Suddenly, I had a family. I have…a family.
What did I do? I took letters which had English stamps. So I took return…I took letters which had English stamps on them so…whatever happened in Israel, whatever I found, I wrote and sent to my friend in London and he sent them to Iraq. So my mother, father, my sisters were all still in Iraq. Ok? So that was the first time that I (could) tell them (my family) that I had seen (our relatives)…(but) I couldn’t say where I saw them. So I said to them, for example, “I saw them…I saw my grandmother, I mean my grandmother, my grandmother…I saw her in north London. These (people) I saw in south London. As in, those people live…in the south. In the south of Israel. Those people live in the north of Israel. Those people live here. We went to the beach next to…I mean, in England. Not in Israel. I took a picture of them, and I cut it. I cut the picture (so that) only they (our relatives) were visible. There was nothing (else, in the background). For example, (a picture of them) standing…in the beach of…our (beach). Next to Tel Aviv. I didn’t put anything (in the picture that would) show (it was taken) in Tel Aviv. And I sent it (the picture). I said to them, just…for example…I took pictures for them in a park (where) nothing was showing (that could identify the location the pictures were taken in). It wasn’t possible to know where (the pictures were taken). Ok?
So I helped them understand - my family in Baghdad - that their family was present in Israel. Dad’s siblings, his mother was still alive, and all this. They didn’t know (prior to this). We didn’t know (when I was still in Iraq) if they (the family who left Iraq) were alive or not. If they were alive or not alive. (It was) like that.
So after that, after they understood all that, I went back to England. And I started trying to get them…them to leave. So bit by bit, I convinced them in an indirect way that…they (should) send my two sisters at first. So they left via Istanbul. I came from England in (19)73. I came to Istanbul. I completed their paperwork, put them on a plane, and my uncles took them here in Israel. And then, after…three…they stayed in…Nisan, April (19)73. And after my father and mother left in August (19)73. I mean, three (or) four months later. And that’s the story of…our exodus from Iraq.