Palestinian Survivors… A Living Memory That Must Not Be Forgotten

Author: Bassam Zakarneh

Many peoples around the world use the term "survivors" when talking about the great tragedies they have experienced, because a survivor is not just a person who remained alive but a witness who carries a story, an experience, and a memory that is passed down from generation to generation. Israel repeatedly returns to the expression "survivors of the Holocaust" and makes their testimonies a fundamental pillar of its historical and human memory.

Here the question arises: Why do we, the Palestinians, not use the same expression when we talk about a long history of massacres, displacement, killing, and occupation? Why do we not talk about the "survivors of the massacres of 1948" and the massacres of Deir Yassin, Tantura, and Dawaimah? And why do we not talk about the survivors of the Kafr Qasim massacre of 1956 and the massacres of 1967 and the accompanying killing and displacement? These events are etched in the Palestinian memory, and their survivors are the truest narrators of them.

Our discourse has accustomed us to make "martyrs" the title of memory, and this is an indisputable right; they are the ones who paid the highest price. However, there are those who remained alive: they lived through the massacre, witnessed the killing and displacement with their own eyes, lost family members, left their homes, villages, and homeland, and carried the story with them throughout their lives. These are the "survivors."

The survivor of the Deir Yassin massacre is not just a person who lived through a historical event but a living witness to the massacre. The survivor of the Nakba of 1948 is not just a Palestinian who remained alive but a witness to uprooting and loss of homeland. As for the survivor of the setback and the massacres of 1967, they carry the memory of occupation and displacement and the effects that those events left on entire Palestinian generations.

The same question is posed today with greater urgency: Why do we not talk about the "survivors of the Gaza genocide"? Gaza is not just numbers in news bulletins but a people who lived through killing, bombing, siege, and displacement, losing homes, relatives, and friends. Those who remained alive after all that carry in their memory a story that no one can tell as they do. The survivor from Gaza today is not just a person who survived bombing but a living witness to what their people endured.

We must not forget the survivors of military operations and assaults on the refugee camps in the West Bank, including the camps of Jenin and Tulkarm. They also carry testimonies that must be preserved, documented, and passed on to future generations.

There is another group that should have a clear presence in our memory: the survivors of Israeli prisons from killing, torture, violations, sexual assaults, and rapes that Palestinians say they were subjected to during detention. These are not just numbers in lists of prisoners and detainees but individuals who emerged carrying the scars of their experiences in their bodies and memories, and their testimonies about the killing and torture of their comrades are part of Palestinian history that must be heard, documented, and preserved.

This call is not a competition between the memory of Palestinians and the memory of any other people, nor an attempt to erase a tragedy or replace it. Every people has its memory, and every person has the right to have their testimony heard and the pain of those who came before them preserved. However, we often do not grant Palestinian survivors the status they deserve in our discourse and memory.

Perhaps it is time to say it clearly: We have our martyrs, and we also have our survivors—survivors of the Nakba, massacres, and occupation, survivors of prisons, survivors of Gaza, and survivors of camps that have been attacked and destroyed. Each one of them carries a part of the memory of Palestine.

Just as the testimonies of Holocaust survivors have become an essential part of global memory, the testimonies of Palestinian survivors of the Nakba, massacres, occupation, genocide, and prisons must remain present, documented, and heard.

We must use the word "survivors" as we use the word "martyrs." The martyrs have departed, and the survivors remain to carry the memory and testimony.

We should not only talk about those who were martyred but also about those who survived, for the survivors are the living memory of Palestine.