Visit to Haifa (III). A trip About Historical Memory.

(Contd. from Visit to Haifa II). After the visit yesterday, I am full of thoughts. It has been a very eye-opening experience about what happened and currently happening in this country (I like to think that people are actually waking up to it). My friend proposes to pay a visit to his paternal grandparents today. I doubt this experience can be more interesting and thought-generating experience. I am definitely wrong.

We arrive to the grandparents' house, on the side of Carmel Mount. A woman opens the door. The woman has a really clear blonde hair, fair skin and blue eyes. My friend talks with her in fluent Arabic, although she has a strange appearance to be an Arab. I come in and am introduced to her and his grandfather. They both speak English, which to me is already a big surprise. I ask her about it and she answers, of course, I speak six languages! English, German, Polish, Russian, Arabic and Hebrew. Really? Yes, I'm actually Polish. The woman explains me how she was born in Warsaw before the second World War. It seems her family was exterminated by the Germans and she was put into an orphanage. She was Jewish.

The children from the orphanage fled from Poland to Russia, trying to avoid the war and the Holocaust. They spent some years in different Soviet regions (even in Azerbaijan) and were finally taken to Israel (probably still named Palestine at the time). When she arrived here, she became integrated in the local society, learnt Hebrew and Arabic and met my friend's grandfather, a Christian Arab from Haifa. When they married, she kind of decided to convert to Christianity, "in order to avoid problems", they say.

The woman talks about the past with contempt and grief. It seems she still remembers her parents and brothers and mourns their loss, even more now than before. I explain her my work here with the Peace NGO and she opens her eyes with awe and illusion. "What you do is amazing", she says. I explain her that it is tough, however, as conflict here escalates in every moment, and people are not convinced that peace is possible. "Nothing is worse than what the Germans did", she says. She seems to remember how heartless, unscrupulous and inhuman the Nazis were with families and children like hers. "But let's talk about nice and beautiful things now, that belongs to the past!" She shows me the pictures of all her grandchildren, and tells me how proud she is of all of them.

I kind of want to ask the grandfather if he still remembers what happened here in 1948. He was 13-14 by the time, he says, and he remembers how they all had to leave Haifa, escaping the war, to go to Nazareth. In Nazareth he spent some months and then he was able to come back to Haifa. I understand he was very lucky, especially compared to what happened to the other branch of my friend's family.

I cannot be more amazed with the live historical testimonies I just had the chance to talk to. One is a victim of the Nazi Holocaust and the war, the other, someone who was present during what the Arabs call the Nakbah, even if a relatively lucky one. It is amazing how history in this region is still alive. Some might say that's probably what prevents this region from evolving, from becoming adapted to the current reality. People are still attached to their old fears and beliefs, their grievous experiences in the past, the loss of the beloved ones. However, as this charming old woman says, maybe it is not such a bad idea to talk about the present situation positively, about the reality of nowadays. Probably it would be better to try, little by little, to leave in the past what belongs to the past.