Chapters
part one
1. The palace. From the teeming alleyways of Old Baghdad, Violette’s family moves to a new home on the riverbank surrounded by palms and orchards. Water and heat dominate their lives.
2. Childhood. The country is still primitive, with river craft that pre-date Noah, and country girls bearing 40kg of yohgurt piled in baskets on their heads. Her siblings go to school on donkey-back.
3. The Shebbath. Food for the sabbath has to be special. Violette explains the rituals of the kitchen and the hammam (Turkish bath), the care with which the dishes are prepared, the table set and the blessings spoken.
4. Iraq. The Jews settled in Mesopotamia in biblical times and live in harmony with their Muslim neighbours. By the time the British arrive (1917) and re-name the country the community represents almost 40% of the population.
5. Changes. Modernisation begins to reshape Iraq. Trade and commerce flourish. The street scene is ‘a wonderful stage’: of pavement vendors, pedlars of home-made cures, and of sights and smells.
6. High holy days. The community preserves ancient tradition through the scorching summer and the mercifully cooler time of September when everything in the home is made new or replaced and special food is prepared.
7. Qahwat Moshi. The coffee shop is the heart of the city where all business is conducted and we meet the matchmaker, learn about worry beads, superstitions and stories from the past.
8. Love and marriage. Arranged marriages are still very much the rule of the day. Violette explains the bargaining processes, the dowry system, the party traditions and rituals.
9. The 1930s. A new and sinister mood sweeps the country when Iraq gains independence. With Nazism on the rise in Europe, Arab sympathies begin shifting to embrace German doctrine. Suddenly, the Jews find themselves persecuted and reviled.
10. Revolution. By 1939 Violette has been married for two years. A period of uncertainty follows when a rabidly pro-Nazi tyrant, Rashid Ali, seizes power. Violette and her husband decide they want to leave – but she is expecting her second baby.
11. Curfew. It is May, 1941. The ‘black month of Rashid Ali’ is all curfew and attacks by ‘Hitler Youth’-style gangs. Sheltering with the family, Violette gives birth to Mira by candlelight in a blacked-out room.
12. Farhud. Two weeks later the Jews of Baghdad are set upon by ranting Muslim mobs. The horror of what happened over two days of full-scale pogrom, when over 180 people were killed and damage equivalent to £13m today was caused.
13. First flight. Violette and her young family flee, having escaped the pogrom through the kindness of Muslim neighbours.
14. Last flight. Violette recounts the dramatic story of her sister’s escape from Baghdad after being jailed for two years.
15. Postscript. Violette muses on the plight of Iraq today, reflecting on its regression into tyranny and mayhem and sighs for her Baghdad, now gone forever.
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PART Two
In three chapters – The Ambassador, The Embassy and Diplomacy – Tony Rocca unravels the mystery of the role played by the British in the pogrom of 1941. While the Jews were being massacred on one side of the Tigris, the Household Cavalry lay camped on the other, with orders not to intervene. It had just accomplished one of the greatest marches in history to arrive at Baghdad, while above it the RAF fought an extraordinary campaign which some have dubbed the Second Battle of Britain. His researches shed new light on the enigma, and reveal the truth behind Britain’s shameful stand.