I came from Iraq. I want to tell you (about) what was there. I…studied at the Alliance (Israelite) school. We were…boys separate, girls separate. I studied at the girls’ school. And…but…many girls wouldn’t come to school, because their families were scared for them (and didn’t want) anything to happen to them, anyone to grab them, anyone to push them over, or anyone to do a bad thing to them. But I was there…I went there (to school), I studied, everything…was there. There was Arabic there, there was English there, there was…geography there. Everything that was necessary for us, we studied. We learned to read, and we learned to write, and we learned to speak. We studied everything there in Iraq. I don’t remember that we wore anything…specific there. We wore…regular (clothes). But in kindergarten, what’s called “gan” in Hebrew, in kindergarten we would wear clothes…white shirts…(and) a blue jacket.

I want to tell you a story about my father. My father knew many…languages. My father used to work in Sh’eba, with the English (army). He was their translator. He (would) translate for them the…speech in Iraqi (dialectof Arabic) and the speech in English. They couldn’t see (tolerate) the Jews. Nobody…not even one person wanted to see (tolerate) the Jews. They made…truthfully. There were two cars…dad went out to one of the cars, the other car came, and stuck him, and broke his arm, and blood was coming out of him. And until he died, my father didn’t have (couldn’t feel) an arm. His arm was without sensation. And that’s how…that’s how life was. That’s how…we lived there. We lived. And we…waited for the day and the hour we (could) get out of there. And we remember all of it. We remember the good, and we remember the bad. And after that, after that, my father couldn’t work with them anymore. he had a store, a store of…plates…and glasses. And I used to go to him (and) help him a bit after school. And I…it’s a bit…a lot of time. A long time. And I…when I left Iraq, I couldn’t go to my dad (to his store). And his neighbours, those stores, his neighbours said to him, “where is your daughter?”. He said to them, “she went to her brother’s house” “she went to her paternal uncle’s house” “(she’s) at her maternal uncle’s house”. But they knew. They said to him, “No! You sent your daughter to Israel. They went…(and) told the police. And one day, dad came in the morning, wanting to open the store, and the store was…closed. He couldn’t open it. They took the…he took the…