|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
You are in: | Front Page > Sitemap > True Lives | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Families in adversity
Then, when Germany attacked Russia, there was an amnesty for all the Polish men in Soviet camps. In our camp of 250 families, only five got out at that time. We were one of the five. The Red Cross sent out a desperate plea to all the countries asking who would take us as refugees before we died in Russia. India was the first country to answer this call.... India -- with its teeming millions of poor, hungry and malnourished children -- opened its doors to us! A little refugee village quickly grew and it was there where we found security, peace and happiness. Poor as we were, the locals were even poorer, yet they always showed us great kindness, hospitality and friendship - with quite special courtesy, compassion and understanding for us children. We were made very welcome and had a wonderful carefree childhood. We lived in India for the next six years. When the war was over and we couldn't go back to Poland, many other journeys followed. But India will always be close to my heart as the country which very generously offered us sanctuary in the Second World War." BOZENA DZIEGLEWSKA-SAIN, UK "I developed psychiatric problems during my second semester at university. My father took me to the psychiatrist, who gave me tablets which I took reluctantly. I have now been to the psychiatric hospital eight times in twenty years. At first they didn't chain me up, but in 1990, my uncle began to do this. After that they began chaining me up at the hospital. My uncle died in 1997 and now I live with my father. He too chains me up at home. It is shameful; everyone sees me in chains. My mother used to help me out of the chains, but she died in 1997. My father remarried and his new wife wants to put me in the hospital permanently. I am very concerned. My father is approaching seventy years old and I am forty. I wonder what my step-mother will do with me when my father dies?" SHERIFF SANUSI, SIERRA LEONE Diana Wahbeh told us about living through the Israeli military incursion in the West Bank town of Ramallah - an experience involving curfews, physical destruction, and an acute sense of loss ...
“I look back at the main street. Many buildings are blackened and burned. Streets are covered with shattered glass glittering in the sun; distorted windowsills are blown out of their places. Why was my city destroyed? I do not understand. Anger builds up in me as I walk up the stairs at home. Why should I be imprisoned in my house for more than twenty days? I have done nothing. Every time a tank passes the house I am rooted to the spot. Many questions fill my mind: Will they search our house this time? Will they wait for us to open the front door or will they just blow it open? Will they barge in screaming or enter quietly? Will they round up my brothers and arrest them? Where will they take them? When will they release them? They once arrested my father, along with many others, for refusing to pay the taxes collected by the Israeli military. I remember the soldiers asking him to step inside the patrol vehicle, and driving him away. And I will never forget my grandfather's tears when we gave him the orange we had picked outside the house he fled during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. He had planted that orange tree in his own garden, but the house is now in Israeli territory, and inhabited by an old Jewish Moroccan couple.
Ten years ago, when Palestinians were allowed inside Israel, my father and I were walking near the house, and he couldn't resist calling on his childhood memories. I couldn't stop him from knocking on the door. But the Jewish Moroccan couple seemed bewildered by this stranger who knew their house. They didn't know that this was once home to a family whose members are now refugees – living just a few kilometers away in the West Bank but now even denied entrance into the city….. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
 |
Front Page |
Technology | Talking Point | In depth Learning English | Programmes | Schedules & Frequencies | Site Map |
|
|
|
Privacy Statement |
|
