Forgotten Survivors: Memories of a Fading Generation | Archive of Video Interviews

The video interviews included in this archive were conducted for the documentary film Forgotten Survivors: Memories of a Fading Generation. Realizing that only small segments from a few of the interviews would be included in the film, I decided to make larger portions of all the interviews available to anyone researching the history of Palestine, the evolution of the Nakba, the personal narratives of the refugees and the ever expanding Palestinian diaspora.

This archive focuses primarily on the personal narratives of the men and women who directly experienced the destruction of Palestinian civil and political society as well as the ethnic cleansing of 85% of the Palestinian population from the land that became Israel in 1948. Sixty-three years after the beginning of the Nakba, many survivors still live now with their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, in dilapidated and densely overcrowded refugee camps in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. Those who were not expelled in 1948, or became internally displaced refugees in their homeland, live in Israel as non-Jewish citizens of the Jewish State. Countless others have been scattered throughout the world. Their stories have seldom been recorded, and their experiences and memories of life before, during and since 1948 are rapidly disappearing as the generation of the Nakba ages and dies.

The political repression that began in 1948 persists to this day in an unrelenting cycle of cruelty that connects the past with the present. The policies of ethnic cleansing that were put into operation even before the establishment of the state of Israel, continue to be implemented against the indigenous Palestinian population in the occupied territories. To illustrate this historical continuity of displacement and repression, I have also included in the archive, interviews I conducted with Palestinians who recently experienced home demolitions, land confiscation, deliberate agricultural devastation and forced displacement in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

This archive, along with others like it, will help to preserve a few voices from a neglected generation of Palestinian refugees before their voices are forever silenced. It will also further incorporate the experiences of Palestinian refugees into the broader discourse on political displacement and extended exile. It is my hope that the video archive and documentary film Forgotten Survivors: Memories of a Fading Generation, will enable the narratives of Palestinian refugees to emerge from the shadows of history and will make their personal and collective experiences of dispossession and resilience available for all to reflect on.

As I conduct additional interviews with Palestinian survivors, I will add them to this archive. I would like to eventually include interviews with forgotten survivors from various parts of the Palestinian diaspora. If you know Palestinian refugees from the generation of the Nakba who would like to record their personal story and add it to this archive, please contact me.