Between the Wars
DURING THE British Mandate a series of rapid changes overtook society in the new country. In wonderment, Violette witnesses the arrival of electricity, motor transport, the cinema, gramophones and western fashion. Women have their hair cut short…but even by the 1930s, young ladies still feel obliged to wear the traditional black ‘abaaya gown (over their European dresses) when they go out of town on picnics or excursions.
Emancipation happens slowly. Foreign travel comes within everyone’s reach, opening up exciting possibilities. The development of cross-desert coach services run by two New Zealand brothers called Nairn means that Baghdadis can travel to Palestine relatively easily and from there take passage to Europe or America.
Violette’s sister Fahima marries, and settles in Tel Aviv. Then, together with Daisy, her younger sister, Violette also journeys to Palestine and spends 1933 and 1934 marvelling at the new-found freedoms they can enjoy there — such as taking a dip in the Mediterranean.
It was my first experience of life
in a freethinking society. I
could not believe the freedom of it.
It was such an adventure, and a
measure of the far-reaching changes
that were happening in our lives
and the emancipation we were
experiencing. Can you imagine
how liberating all this was,
to someone brought up respecting
the conventions of Baghdad?
Before I was born, women
had been prohibited from removing
their stockings in their homes, even
on hot days or in old age. And here
we were, only a generation later,
in Palestine, swimming in the
sea in full public view.
the darkening skies
But as Violette was coming of age, so too was Iraq. The country’s independence from Britain in 1932, the death of King Faisal — the monarch who had pledged to protect the country’s minorities — and the rise of Arab nationalism all bode ill for our community. It was the ascension to the throne of Faisal’s young son, Ghazi, a pro-Nazi, that heralded the gathering storm.
The rumblings of nationalism began to turn the skies dark. Ghazi died in a mysterious car crash. Military coup followed military coup… and the Jews shuddered, but life continued pretty much as before. Mother married and gave birth to my elder sister, Lena, in 1938. Our people began to be targeted by pro-Nazi agitators. Anti-British (and anti-Jewish) mobs started taking to the streets. It was starting to turn ugly — and then World War II broke out.
When war was declared, London thought it had an ally in Iraq, which it had locked in by defence treaty. London was wrong. In 1941 it sided with the Germans.