Meet Gloris Dunnous, Philadelphia resident since 1989 and a professional interior designer. She shares her childhood story of escaping Basra, Iraq, during the time of the Farhud, the violent anti-Jewish pogroms in 1941. The Farhud persecution of Iraqi Jews has often been compared to the Nazi “Kristallnacht” destruction of Jewish lives and businesses in Germany.
Formerly an idyllic life for young Gloris, Iraq was once a country of harmonious cultural and religious diversity where Jews and Arabs flourished in peace for centuries. Rising Arab nationalism, infected by Nazi fascist ideology, obliterated the once thriving Iraqi Jewish community.
Gloris journeys back to the time when, as a nine-year-old child fleeing her home, she was sent by her parents to India and Egypt, living on her own in convents as a Jewish girl, not knowing what the future would bring.
Credits
Sound Editors: Joe Brin, Julia Meyer Gross | Sound: (Freesound.org) – 129340_Le Abbaye Noirlac_crickets | Music: (Free Music Archive) – Chill Hop Arabic Main_Menachim Engel_Kabbalistic Village_Soundcloud; TheGreatestHonorMain_Menachem Engel_Kabbalistic Village_Soundcloud | Photo: (Wikicommons) Iraq_Kifl_Native_Muslim Village_Jewish_shrine_Ezekiel's_tomb_w/ rabbi_caretakers