Gathering The Voices Scotland
Testimonies of Holocaust survivors who settled in Scotland
So the regent and his family were killed by that coup [in 1958] by them [by the Revolutionists], because there was a coup in the government at that time. So, from a kingdom, that was done away, literally done away, killed all of them, and they established the republic and, from then on, it became Iraq as a republic. They had a president and all the rest of it.
INT: And when was that?
ED: That was when I was away, in the early 50’s, after Israel. I didn’t see any of that.
INT: Can I ask you, again, about the pogrom that you lived through, as a child? Do you think that was directly related to what was happening in Europe?
ED: Yes, because my dad says, and I have a vision of that, although I don’t remember seeing it, about half a dozen Gestapo people walked in the main street of Baghdad, like the high street, and they were followed by mobs of Arabs, you know, welcoming them and all that. There were only about four or six of them, all in their leather things and their outfit, the uniform and all that, and the swastika. I have a vision of that, I don’t really know if I saw them, if I was in the street by chance, or if my dad told me about them. But there is a picture, in my head, that I saw these officers, the SS officers, being welcomed in the middle of Baghdad.
And then things changed, I think, in Europe at that time, maybe. Because, at that time, all Europe was really,[under Nazi occupation] Belgium and France and up to Norway and, of course, up to Egypt as well, so we were not far from them then.
INT: So you think that you suffered, especially, because of what was happening in Nazi Germany?
ED: Yeah, because the government were very pro-Nazi and, at that time, (Oh it’s really very convoluted) we had a young, I was still there, a very young king there. His father was killed in an accident and he was only about ten*, and he was killed in a motor bike accident, or in a car accident. So we had a Regent there, and that’s when I left, so I don’t really know what happened after that.
*{Editor’s note. The car accident happened in 1938, when the young King was aged 3}
INT: So you were in London, and you’re sending letters to your parents?
ED: Well that came after
INT: Could they tell you about what was happening in Baghdad?
ED: No, no. In, [they ]kind of, covered [up], what do you call it, enigmatic?
INT: Code?
ED: Yeah, very little. But I did something that they suffered for. You know, we were sitting in the, what they call the Common Room at college, and [we had ] the Telegraph, you know at college everyone is celebrating the State of Israel and I was Jewish and in London. I mean, that’s fantastic and I had friends, they were very well-to-do, they were in Belgium. She sent me, my girlfriend, my best friend, she sent me a cutting about the State of Israel and me, in my stupidity, or in my enthusiasm, I sent that piece of paper in a letter to my brother. And as I was just saying, everything was censored.
“Ah, that’s your sister, you are all Zionist and this is what you are all, you are just, you are terrible, you’re the scum of the earth, and all the other expletives about the Jews.” And they took them to prison to question them. And so, you know, they asked them about their family and that, and my dad had two brothers in America, one in New York, one in California at that time, for a long time they were there.
“So you get letters from them as well. So your daughter now is in London, and you are quite a ring,[network] you cover the whole world of Zionism. Your daughter is an agent in London, you’ve got your brothers in America and now you’ve got Hebrew books and you’re getting sent letters and you’re writing letters.”
So they put them in prison and the way they treated them, my brother, you wonder why my brother suffers like that, Abraham [my brother]. They tortured him and he spoke up because he was very young, and my dad used to tell him to ‘shut up, shut up.’ “No I’m fighting for my rights.” “We have no rights, be quiet, and just let me speak for you.” And they kept, you know, hitting him and that. He was very ill and my brother suffered, you know
INT2: The three boys and your dad.
ED: Yes, but Abraham was the one who was most [out]spoken, Na’eem took it lying down, but Abraham thought he was going to defend himself and this is what I said in the letter, “the State of Israel and we’re all very happy and all that, so we’ll get rid of all”. I must have put a line to say, “we’ll get rid of all this anti-Semitism now”, and that, and that got in and they went to the British Consul, [and said] “Look at what that girl, the Jewish girl, is writing about us and about everything”, so, I was, what do they call it, a criminal as well, abroad, you know? [They] just tried to get me, so I was terrified at that time.
INT: Did they put your mother into prison as well?
ED: No, not my mother, but the boys. Na’eem was all right but Abraham got it really, and my dad
INT2: How did they get out?
ED: I don’t really know how they got out, by someone who really knew my dad through the work and also money, probably, changed that. I don’t really know the details of that, how they got out. So my brother, who suffered a lot, he tried to go to Israel and, at that time, that wasn’t allowed. It wasn’t, So he goes out as a fugitive, if you like. And he went via Iran and he was caught there. Iran was no better, and he was caught up in hospital. He developed appendicitis, So, Abraham was, that’s why he is not such a brave man now. He’s terrified, runs away from a mouse, now. So that really preyed on him, so he got, eventually, somehow or other, through the Agency, probably the Jewish Agency, he did get into Israel.
INT: Was he imprisoned, also, in Iran, after the appendicitis?
ED: He wasn’t imprisoned in Iran but he was persecuted there because he was a Jew. But, obviously, they took him to hospital to have his appendix out and they wanted rid of him. I don’t know how he got to Israel.
ED: Well there was a very bad persecution when I was there, when I was about ten, eleven years old, in the early 40’s, when we had a terrible uprising. That was awful. It started one afternoon and my cousin came, they usually came at any time, and he said, shouting, “Batten [down] your windows and your doors, there is terrible things brewing and I’d better go home.” And that night, we started hearing shots and it got more and more, and, in the night, it was more than shots, maybe like hand grenades or whatever it was, it was big explosions. And, you know, in Baghdad, we sleep on the roof, so we could hear all that and we could see flares and you could hear screams and screams. That was not far from us but it wasn’t exactly in our road, so they were really going into houses, killing and looting and shooting, and stones, knives, whatever it is they had. And you could hear shouting and screaming, and we were absolutely frozen to death, you know, just, what do we do, we were going to be next? And, after the screams, you hear a, this is horrendous, I don’t know what they suffered in the Nazi Germany, you hear the voice kind of fades away and that is someone obviously killed.
So there were a lot of them. I don’t know, as I say, I mean I was too young to, but it was terrible. One of my cousins was killed. They got some babies. I hadn’t seen that, but my dad went out the next morning and he said, “The gutters are full of blood”, you know, it was terrible. “Why did you go there?”, oh dad was one of these people, he just wanted to know what’s going on, but, “Shhh, stay there and be quiet”, and the stories that went, they see a baby, you know, and I don’t if it’s tradition here, they have little, kind of, bangles round their ankles, a little gold one. If they couldn’t take it off, they ripped the child and they took it off, it’s horrendous, I don’t want to hear that, that’s really awful. And a lot of that happened and young, you know, young girls, just married and they killed their husband and their relatives, right in front of them.
There was a time the Arabs were not like that. If you stood there and said, “Please, I’m at your mercy”, they understood that and they let it go, but there was no mercy left. They were all there to loot and haul things and jangle, and felt so wonderful at killing so many Jews and that was the uprising. That was an uprising.
I think it must have been in the early forties, I don’t really remember. Maybe, I think the war was on at that time. I don’t remember because I wasn’t really, I was just a child at that time, ‘41, when the war was on. They were very, I mean, the government was very pro-Nazi so, the looting, they came in riding on horses, supposed to be, kind of, looking after you and protecting you, but they went with the looters and they joined in, you know. So it was, it wasn’t just a mob, it was the government and who do you call? There was no-one to protect you. They used to say, you know, the looters were themselves, you know. They allowed it, they gave them a free hand to do what they liked and they did what they liked, what they wanted, in a very atrocious way. That was awful.
Int: Today is the 18th May 2015, and we are here to interview Esperance David. Hello Esperance.
ED: Hello.
Int: Could you begin and tell us when you were born?
ED: The 7th of May, 1929. (laughter).
Int: Where were you born? And what was your name at birth?
ED: I was born in Baghdad, and my name was Esperance Ovadia.
Int: And what language did you speak?
ED: Arabic, Jewish Arabic.
Int: Is that different?
ED: Yeah, well not very different. It’s kind of, well, botched up Jewish Arabic. A pidgin Arabic if you like.
Int: Can you tell us a little bit about your family life in Baghdad? Did you have brothers and sisters?
ED: I have three brothers and one sister.
Int: What did your father do?
ED: My Dad was an auditing accountant. He worked in the financial office in the Ministry of Finance, in Baghdad. That’s in Iraq of course.
Int: When he was at work did he speak the Jewish Arabic, or could he?
ED: No, no, because they were not Jewish. The state was Muslim, Arab Muslim. It’s not a different language, but the Jewish Arabic has got a bit of a quirk in it, you know. They understand it, and we understand their language, but there are sometimes terms and expressions, and even the accents, sometimes are a bit different.
Int: Tell us about your family life. Was it fun to grow up in Baghdad?
ED: It was fun, it was good. We made our own fun. We lived in a community. They were mostly Jewish in our area, but there were some Arab Muslims there, but we lived together. There was no hiding, but we did not really mix with them. My Dad happened to be working with them, but the schools we went to were Jewish schools. The Alliance Israelite Universaire, that’s a universal[international] Jewish school. They have them in France and in other places as well. But ours was established in Baghdad by someone who was well off in the family, and very well known. Yes, it was a very nice, excellent school.
Int: Was that the common way that things were done? That Jewish children went into Jewish schools?
ED: They were private schools, and there were some who really were very, kind of not really affluent, not poor, but they were not in the bracket where they can afford private Jewish schools. There were some other schools. This wasn’t the only one. The one we went to, and my family, was one of the best. It was a public school in terms of the English schools. Public, not in state school, it was a private school.
Int: Did you have Jewish studies in the school? Did you learn Hebrew?
ED: We learnt the alphabet,we were kind of allowed, but very reluctantly to really learn at school. And at my school we learnt a little bit, nothing to speak. Just we learnt the alphabet, and we learnt to read one or two paragraphs from the Seder books, and things like that. We went to shul, the service was conducted in Hebrew, and we were allowed that. But very kind of reluctantly we were allowed to do these things, and we always had to kind of look behind our shoulders, [that] kind of thing.
We did have a lot of incidents. I suppose like here, when it is high festivals, we were known ‘these are the Jewish people’, going to the synagogue and we were looked down upon [by the Arabs]. But sometimes they were a bit nasty, but not physically, you know.
Int: You mean like name calling and such stuff?
ED: Name calling, yes, and they didn’t do name calling but they were kind of hostile a bit to the idea, but they didn’t do anything. But occasionally they did create problems in the synagogue,people coming [in]. You know, being aggressive, creating a fight if you like, and making life a bit uncomfortable.
Int: Was this organised by the government or was this just individuals?
ED: For sure it was very much the [Muslim] community. It was not organised, just the Muslim public you know.
Int: So that must have been something that marred your childhood a little. Did it? Were you very conscious of that as a young person?
ED: Yes, yes. But not, I mean, we didn’t live with it consciously, we lived our own life, but that was there. I mean we knew it was there. For example; if I walked to school, which is about a twenty minutes’ walk, and it’s very early in the morning, I would go along the river. There were little vendors, they were only teenagers. I must have been something like nine years old at that time, and I would just have to look away, pretending that I’m not seeing them. But they would pass snide remarks and would give very kind of rude, obscene gestures, and that’s terrifying for a nine year old. But I would hoof it and just get out of that place.
Int: So that would be 1938 time?
ED: Yeah.
Int: So while things were happening in Europe. Did you know what was happening in Europe?
ED: Oh yes. Oh yes. We did. I mean not as a child, I was not bothered by that. My Dad is a very good reader and he knew what it was, and we always listened to the radio. And then they [The Arabs] became very anti Jewish at that time, and very pro fascist Hitler.
Int: So you felt the difference because of what was happening in Europe?
ED: Oh yes, oh yes. Absolutely, absolutely. We were more cautious really. We didn’t, we lived very carefully and tried not to create anything. But otherwise we lived our life just as normal as we could. We didn’t allow it to kind of stop us doing things. We had clubs,The community was more maybe like here for us, a lot of family you know, aunties and uncles, and cousins, so we didn’t need anyone from outside if you like.
Int: I remember you told me your Father was limited in his work because of his background, because he was Jewish.
ED: No he wasn’t limited in his work, not at all. He was quite exploited really. He worked in an office, a quite responsible job. His boss was a Muslim Arab from the government, and he did all the work, and his salary was very kind of low compared, when he was doing the work, but he wasn’t paid. And a colleague of m his, used to say while smoking a cigarette, “Well you do all the work and we enjoy it” kind of thing. And he didn’t mind doing all the work because he was good at it. He just got on with it, and that’s it. But it was very difficult when the pay was very low. The same people in the same office I should imagine had much more pay really.
Int: So you come from a Sephardic background.
ED: Yes.
Int: So we have a traditional Friday night. So what do you have on a Friday night?
ED: We are Jews you know! Well back home we did. I live here it’s different for me.
Int: Yeah, so what sort of things…you’d have on a Friday night?
ED: Yes, you’d get the family around, and my Dad used to have the glass of wine. And he said the Kiddush, you know, eating chicken and all this kind of thing, and candles, My Mum used the candles. And you don’t buy the candles like you do here. We had kind of a little bowl with water and oil, the real old fashioned thing. And things that my Mum used to make, like a kind of a little stick, with cotton wool, and dip it in the oil and light it until the oil finished, and there is water underneath and that’s it, very old things, yeah.
Int: Traditions. Had your parents lived there many many years? Your grandparents and before that. Had they lived in Baghdad for long?
ED: Yes, I knew my grandparents. They were all from Baghdad. Yes, I go as far as my granddad. Beyond that I don’t really know. I just heard about them you know. Like my Dad’s father, he used to write. So for him in the shul, handwriting, he was very good.
Int: What about the size of the community? It must have been a very large community. Do you have any idea how big it was?
ED: I wouldn’t say we lived in ghettos, but you can tell in Newton Mearns [Glasgow] there’s a lot of Jews here. And where we were in Batawiin there were a lot of Jewish people there. But not exclusively. It’s not like a ghetto; there were a lot of nice homes for Arabs to live there as well. But they kept to themselves, and we kept to ourseves.
Int: And what types of youth club did you go to?
ED: Well at that time I was too busy studying. I was an eight / nine year old if I remember. And the clubs arrived much later. Social clubs, they would meet and they would blether, and they would gossip and discuss things. Mostly it was the men, but then the women started joining too.
Int: Were they Zionistic?
ED: No. Oh don’t mention that word in Baghdad. It’s enough to be Jewish. If they call you a Zionist, you know.
We had soldiers from the Haganah, [they were ]Polish soldiers, and we did have underground classes, and my Dad used to cringe and get upset because if they [the Muslims]knew, [ that would be difficult as the Polish soldiers] were Zionists. This what they did and they taught us the Hebrew and that wasn’t really in the open.