We would like to thank our members in
Egyjews discussion group for contributing this story and making it
available to everyone.
"My Internment in the Egyptian
Concentration Camp, during the Six Day War"
I like to share with the forum a story, a life story of my
younger brother Marc.
For many years we have asked Marc to write about his experience
in Egypt, and for many times he declined, he did so due to the bad
memories he carried... a scar he did not want to rouse !
Two weeks ago, Marc decided to celebrate his dedication to be a
Hazzan , he self taught the Hebrew and led the whole congregation
that day for the Shabbat service, all alone, reading straight from
the Torah !.. How proud we all were !
Few days later he sent me the following; titled "let the whole
world know". Some might relate to but for others might be a little
hard to relive.
Marc is a simple man and I love him dearly, I know he went
through lot of agonies documenting and reliving these memories,...
but what he wrote came straight from the heart !
You might like to jump straight to : My Internment in the
Egyptian Concentration Camp, during the Six Day War.
Elie A. Kheder
The First Part deals a little bit about
my family and me and the Second Part is the story of my internment at
Abu Zaabal and Tora concentration camps
My name is Mourad Amin Khedr. My
father's name is Amin Khedr Vita Maatouk, My mother's name is Gracia
David Dabbah.
When we came to the USA we changed
our names, David and I kept the last name as Khedr.
The Kheder family consists of five
persons:
My older brother's name is Elie, we
call him Lili.
I am Mourad. They call me Marco or Marc.
My sister Fortune, we call her Touna.
David, we call him Doudou, he was 16 when I was taken to the
concentration camp, He was a great help to all of us in the camp,
visiting us twice a week and helping other families outside the
camp.
And the last one is my youngest brother, Joe and we call him,
Sousou.
I was born in Cairo, Egypt, November
26, 1946 in the Sakakini area. In 1958, we moved to a nicer
neighborhood, called Midan el Tahrir right in the center of Cairo. I
studied at "Lycee' Français" in Daher and obtained the
"E3dadeyah" ( Junior High School diploma). Then I went to "Institute
Salesiano Don Bosco", an Italian trade School in Rod el Farag (a
Cairo neighborhood). There, I graduated in 1965 from the Mechanical
Section. I also went to the "Leonardo da Vinci" School of
Mechanical Drawing.
Don Bosco hired me as a teacher,
where I worked for two years. My starting salary was 18 Egyptian
pounds per month (roughly under $3 present value). It climbed to 23
Egyptian pounds, which, at the time, made me feel very rich.
In April, 1967, a few months before
the Six Day War, my older brother- Elie, loosing hope in finding any
job for a Jew after graduating from college left to the USA via
France. My family intended to follow him shortly after that, due to
the continuance anti Semitism and economic squeeze on the remaining
few Jews in Egypt in addition, Nasser was threatening war against
Israel, something which worried us very much.
A few months later, in June, the Six
Day War began between Israel and the Arabs My father and I were sent
to the concentration camps for three years and 3 months, first at a
camp called Abu Zaabal, then in one called Tora, just outside Cairo.
We were released in 1970, given a French entry visa and taken
directly to Cairo airport leaving to Paris, France, with only
the shirts on our backs. There, I worked for three months in
a clothes warehouse for a monthly salary of 800 French Francs
(roughly $155 today).
In January 1971, before immigrating
to America, my family visited Israel for two weeks. We were reunited
with my uncles and aunts whom we didn't see for over 20 years.
In America, we went to San Francisco
because of the large number of Egyptian Jews. The Jewish Community
put us in a hotel on Vanness St. I also found a job with my
younger brother, David, at Fritzi of California, a clothing
manufacturer owned by a Jew who was committed in helping emigrant
Jews. I went to night school to learn electrical and gas welding and
auto mechanics.
After few months it got boring and
wrote a letter to the Jewish Federation to do Aliyah. My mother found
out and took all my mail so I wouldn't leave. Meanwhile, she started
talking to Aziza Moussa regarding her daughter, Bella Moussa Pessah
and we got engaged. I was 26 years old and she was 18. On June 22,
1974, we got married and now have two boys and a girl--- Victor,
Isabel and Albert.
In 1982, Fritzi closed the department
I worked in and I was laid off. I then worked in a foreign car repair
shop, called Enzo's on Bush St., I worked for free for the first four
months and when I was more experienced, the owner hired me as a
"Mechanic Helper" for $8 an hour. I worked there for two years until
the business was sold. Then I worked for Quality Tune Up for another
two years after which I became one of the franchisees and got my own
shop in the corner of Serramonte Blvd. and Gellert in Daly City
(San Francisco Bay Area). I managed the shop for the next ten years.
I gave the shop to my son Victor because he was interested in cars.
He managed it for 2 years then gave it up. He was only 21 years old
and the stress was too much for him. I am writing this to tell the
story to my children and grandchildren, our background history and
from where we came.
We are Karaite Jews.
My Internment in Egyptian
Concentration Camp, during the Six Day War
On Tuesday, June 6 , at 2.00 am, I
was sleeping next to my brother and suddenly my mother was shaking me
on my shoulder. "Wake up, wake up Marco." I put on my clothes, half
asleep and I didn't know what I was doing. The house was dark; no
lights and at the front door were two men. They said we were to come
for questions which wouldn't take long, only for a few minutes. They
took me and my father. We were taken outside to a waiting car which
drove us to the Abdin prison in downtown Cairo. I was only 19 years
old!
The prison cell was dark. At the
door, a guard was standing. The door had a strong metal bar at the
top, as a safety measure against escape. Inside the cell, we saw a
few more Jews, about 8 or more. The cell was smelly like sh..t,
stifling heat, no air, dark. We heard the sound of bombs. We gave the
guard one Egyptian pound (20 cents, a lot at that time) just so he
could open the door for five minutes and allow fresh air in from the
outside. Next morning, around 10.00 am, we were taken to a big,
green, army truck and on to the concentration camp. The truck stopped
in front of a big building which, I found out later, was the famous
Abu Zaabal concentration camp. I heard wailing and loud voices coming
from inside. I was very scared. I didn't know where I was and
couldn't believe what was happening to me. My heart started beating
strongly and I started to perspire. We were taken to a big gate,
through it we saw a large table, three soldiers sitting. We formed a
line and one by one, approached the table. One of the soldiers said:
"Ya yahoudi ya ibn il Kalb, esmak eh", "You Jew, son of a dog, what's
your name?" We then emptied our pockets and given sackcloth to wear,
a blanket and an aluminum plate. No knives or forks. We had to eat
with our hands. The building was two stories high: the Jewish
prisoners were on the second floor and the Moslem Brotherhood and
anti Nasser Egyptians and Palestinians from Gaza (who were supposedly
collaborators with Israel), were on the first floor. I went to the
second floor and I was shocked. There were people, young and old,
running round and round a small yard, like dogs, and behind them, a
soldier beating them with a big belt. They were screaming. It was my
turn to run. It felt like a bad dream! You heard the voices scream,
"Down with Israel. Long live Gamal Abdel Nasser. Palestine is Arab.
Down with the Jews and with the Zionists", repeated over and over.
We were then taken to our cell, which was made for 20 persons,
although 60 were crammed in it. The room was 25ft by 30ft with one
toilet and two small, square windows on the ceiling. The cell had a
metal door. The floor was made of white tile. We were all Jews. The
first thing we did was to introduce ourselves. I didn't know anyone.
Night time came. We had nothing to eat. We heard the bombs. It was
very dark. We wanted to sleep but couldn't, mainly because we were
stuffed together like sardines, very close to each other. Each person
had enough space for about two and half tiles. The other person's
feet were in your face. If you wanted to pass by to go to the
bathroom, you had to step over several bodies and by the time you
returned, your place was already taken by someone else! Morning time
came. There was a daily routine. First, we were ordered to sing
stupid songs like "Down with Israel. Down with Zionism. Palestine is
Arab. Long live Gamal Abdel Nasser." Then we had to run around a
circle while one of the guards swung his belt at us. The Jewish
prisoners were on the second floor of the building, in rooms # 19
through 25. Breakfast consisted of "foul medamess" (cooked fava
beans) and bread, a typical Egyptian meal. The food contained small
stones and sand which crunched in our teeth as we ate. Sometimes, we
found cigarette butts in the food, probably put there deliberately by
the guards. On Thursday morning June 9, (fourth day of the war),
another large group of Jewish prisoners (about 200 persons) arrived
by train from Alexandria. They went through the same procedure as we
did.
Apparently, they were paraded in
front of the Egyptian people in the streets, as if they were Israeli
prisoners. They looked as if they had been beaten badly. We were
divided in two groups and taken outside to the yard where stones and
rocks were scattered. No talking was permitted. They asked us to
separate the big rocks from the small ones. There was no particular
reason for this. All they wanted was to keep us busy and humiliate us
by forcing us to do meaningless work. The routine was the same nearly
every day. For lunch, we had rice, "foul medamess", cheese, vegetable
and sometimes, meat(?).
There were around 400 Jews, in total
at "Abu Zaabal". The youngest was 17 years old and the oldest was 82.
The guards consisted of the "Kaed" or captain, and 3 officers, two of
whom were very bad guys I still remember their names: Rashad and
Essam. I will never forget their faces either. They were recent
graduates of the Army College and hated Jews. They showed us their
muscles in front of everybody and beat us for no reason. Whenever the
news from the warfront was not good for Egypt, we knew they were
going to beat us. The Moslem Brothers were allowed to receive
newspapers, daily, including Al Ahram and Al Goumhouria. One of us,
climbed to the highest window to be able to read the headlines, which
was in large print and in red. From the headlines we were able to
tell what was happening. In the first few days of the war, the
headlines were about Egypt's victories over the Israelis and the
large number of Israeli planes shot down. The news said that many
Israeli prisoners, including pilots, were captured. Knowing the
Egyptian propaganda, we realized that all this was just a bunch of
lies.
One day, while I was running around
and the guard was hitting me with the belt, I suddenly felt sick and
had to stop. My heart was beating very hard like it was going to jump
out from my chest. The officer asked me if I had a heart problem and
I said yes. I found out, later, that my father had told the officer
that I had a heart problem. Because of that, I was transferred from
Cell 20 to Cell 22 which was for older prisoners. However, every time
the guard saw me in that cell, he would ask why I was with the older
persons since I was much younger and "I looked as strong as a horse
or even a camel." Anyway, it was thanks to my father that I was put
with the older prisoners and thus avoided some of the beatings. One
day, we were asked to fill an application that allowed our families
to send us money for the prison "canteen." We could buy a limited
number of cigarettes, sardines, cheese, vegetables and watermelon.
But since we had no knife to cut the watermelon, we would drop it on
the ground and it would crack open. I used to trade cigarettes for
food since I did not smoke. One day, for dinner, we were given a
bucket of soup to divide among us. But after eating some of it, one
of the prisoners told us there was a dead "rat" in it. As it turned
out, it was only a joke by David El Gamil and "the rat" was only a
part of eggplant. David El Gamil was the funny one among us. He made
us feel better with his sense of humor, even in prison. David went to
Israel after he was released in 1970.
After eight months, we were
transferred to another concentration camp, "Tora", which was much
larger. Visitors were allowed once a month and I had my first home
meal when my mother came to visit us. All boxes containing food had
to be opened, which the guards inspected. They would take away any
unusual looking food and dump it in a bucket of water. Gradually we
were allowed to receive food every two weeks. We found out that by
giving the guards cigarettes or money, he would let the food boxes
pass without opening them. We rigged a small apparatus out of an
empty can which allowed us to heat our food (Towtow). We used cotton
and cologne for fuel. During the next two years, our condition
improved. We were allowed to leave our cells to go into the yard all
day. We played soccer, exercised, ran and even constructed a tennis
court! In the evening, we would play poker by using hand made cards
from the packets of Belmont cigarettes. We would draw the numbers by
using red mercurochrome (a red-colored antiseptic) and charcoal (from
burnt pieces of wood). In the playground, Muslim and Jewish prisoners
mingled together. Strange, but we got along fine with little or no
conflict. We had one thing in common: We hated Nasser since he had
imprisoned and brutalized us all, Moslem and Jew.
One of the fellows from the Moslem
Brotherhood taught me how to do "crochet" with a pair of needles.
First, I had to make a needle from a piece of wood which I
filed carefully. Then, I would get thread from the sleeves of the
sackcloth garment we wore. I would then roll the thread into a ball
and then knit myself a hat, gloves or socks. In the playground, we
exercised a lot.
Every morning, I would run and then
take a cold shower. Running around the inside of the camp was about
three quarters of a mile. The best runner among the prisoners was a
thin, but, powerful looking Muslim fellow. He could run 25 times
around the camp and was the camp champion. However, I practiced hard
and was able to beat him, thus becoming the champion. I was very
proud of that accomplishment. The Jewish prisoners played soccer
against the Muslim prisoners and we beat them 3 goals to 2. I scored
one of the goals. I was pleased with myself.
As the months and years passed, I was
very worried that we were never going to be released and was even
thinking of escaping. One day, we were taken by truck to court. The
Judge told us the reason we were in prison was because we were
Zionist spies for Israel.
I remember one horrible event that
happened. One day, a guard demanded a young man to undress and to
sodomize his brother in front of their father who nearly had a heart
attack. They were from Alexandria. Another time, the guard found out
that our "chammas" was wearing striped underwear (or no underwear at
all with only a pajamas pants, I can't remember). He accused him of
being "gay", a most awful insult in Arab culture and beat him very
hard. To make him stop, we gave the guard money.
In the prison, we needed money for
virtually everything-----bread, clothes, to open the door, to make a
mattress (using straw), special favors, etc. We purchased a small
stove from a Muslim prisoner. It was made from the cans of food we
received---halvah, "foul medamess" or vegetables. The
"stove‚Äö worked well but had not screws and was not
soldered together. The stove cost us ten to fifty piasters, depending
on the size, a lot of money at the time. I made "prayer beads" from
olive pits. I also made a backgammon, dominos and checkers; they were
made by mixing the dough of the bread with water, then form them into
the desired shape. For color, I rubbed wet dirt on the game pieces,
and then let them dry in the sun.
By the third year in prison, we began
hearing rumors of our release. One day, an announcement was made and
we were divided into groups and mine was the last one to exit the
gate. The Captain was concerned that, upon our release, we would come
back and bomb the prison! He tried to be nice to us! We were taken
directly to the airport where we boarded a plane to Paris, because
the French government agreed to give us temporary asylum. We were
greeted by HIAS, Hebrew Immigration Aid Service, a wonderful
organization which put us up in Paris for 8 months till we obtained
our U.S. entry visa. We arrived in San Francisco in 1971 where
we started our new life, in freedom and security. It's good to be in
America. I entered the concentration camp when I was 19 years old
promised only to be for few minutes and came out when I was 22.
Precious three years and three months were wasted.
I am writing this so that the whole
world knows what the Egyptian authorities did to us simply because we
were Jews, even Egyptian indigenous Jews who were in Egypt over three
thousand years before the Arabs invaded and conquered the whole
Middle East in the seventh century.
Marc Khedr, August 2002
Revised ( October 2004)
Links to photos of objects from the Abu Zabaal and Tora prisons.
This article was first published by Marc on the website of the Historical Society Of Jews From Egypt.
