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

The video interviews included in this archive were conducted for the documentary films Forgotten Survivors: Memories of a Fading Generation, and Portraits of Denial & Desire. Those documentary projects focus on the narratives of generations of Palestinian refugees who were first expelled from their homes and homeland in 1948. 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 oral history archive presents the personal stories of men and women who directly experienced the destruction of Palestine in 1948, as well as the experiences of their descendants who continue to live in the aftermath of that great catastrophe. The destruction of Palestinian civil and political society by settler-colonial forces in 1948, was combined with the ethnic cleansing of 80% of the Palestinian population from the land that became Israel. More than seven decades 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 stories 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 films Forgotten Survivors: Memories of a Fading Generation, and Portraits of Denial & Desire, 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.

A large number of interviews were conducted with Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, while numerous other interviews were conducted in Palestine, Israel and Jordan. My objective is to continue conducting interviews with Palestinians living in Syria when their tragic civil war ends.

As I record, edit and subtitle 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.