Catching sight of the years of war

In "Room Number 24" and with "The Friends of Martyr Mohammad Gereh"

Mohammadali Fatemi
Translated by Fazel Shirzad

2017-4-15

Two Qasr-e-shirin[1] counties   

The book " Room number 24: a narration of the life of immigrants during the imposed war, adapted from self-writing memoirs of Sabria Falleh Hossein" is published by Sarir publication and it is put on the market by a great deal of effort of Maintenance and Publication of Sacred Defense Values Headquarter of Qazvin province and by a financial support from Islamic City Council and Municipal Hall of Qazvin in 1395(2016). The text of book, with 384 pages, is edited by Masoud Amirkhani in 36 chapters, we read the memoirs of poet who is from Qasr-e-shirin and living in Qazvin. He explained that all of contents of the book, besides changes of names, are written and documented truly.

The first chapter of the book is related to home, family and birthplace of the narrator, and the second one has deal of the Iraqi imposed against Iran. At the beginning of war, the narrator, wife was taken hostage, but, after a few days, she was abandoned, and told her memoir: "we were transferred to Iraq…, and hospitalized in a hospital because we were injured. After having therapy, I was transferred to a jail. One of the Iraqi soldiers said me that we had a spy in Qasr-e-shirin.

Due to extremity of the war, the narrator, his family and townsmen were going to leave Qasr-e-shirin. The detail of this event are mentioned in the book, over the pages 1 to 79. The feature of the book, from page 1 to page 79, is that reader can be familiar with Qasr-e-shirin before the war, and Qasr-e-shirin at the beginning of the war.

After these pages, the narrator goes towards another age in other pages; the age of immigration from war areas to safer areas. The narrator also speak about this event; his residence, for instance in camp Sarab Nilufar near Kermanshah, etc.

Naturally, living in such situation result in a lot of difficulties, and the narrator tried to speak about them not to be forgotten. It causes the reader to be familiar with the situation of Kermanshah in those days; it was a city where was both within gunshot of enemy and was the host of refugees.

Furthermore, the narration of the story was led to make the relation of the narrator with his wife's family notably. This relation and notable protection of relatives towards each other is, in fact, kind of resistance against the enemy. The narrator of book "Room Number 24" indicates such relation among relatives corresponding with the situation of those days, and minimum ability of relatives in the situation.

Although, war may involves some particular events, the progress of life also includes up-and-down conditions. The narrator's wife, in this way, was died because of heart failure: he tells: "now, I should live with three orphans; every day, I encounter with more problems. Of course, he sometimes had opportunity to solve the problem; his wife's father brought him and his children to Abyek city of Qazvin. After dying the father of his wife, he, with his children, were settled in Alavi hotel, room number 24 where was for settling the war refugees.

In the new life condition of the narrator it can be find that he tried, some or other, to keep the life of himself and his children. In this way, he tells memoir to readers expressly and easily. Mostly, the stories is about the situation of war refugees whom he was in relation with them, and their different life stories; of course, all of the stories remind" life" for the readers. 

The book consists of eight chapters according to eight years of Iraqi imposed war against the Islamic republic of Iran, and with mostly same topic. At the beginning of each chapter, it is mentioned where and which areas and operations the fighter of division Ansar Al-Hossein attended in; then, some memoirs of them about military monitoring, in that year, are mentioned in the book. At the end of each chapter, some information are mentioned such as the name of narrator, place and time of events took place.

The chapter" Monitoring in years 1359(1980)" consists of three memoirs, and other chapters make a review of war years respectively, and it consists of 176 memoirs altogether. Most of narrators of these memoir are Basij (Volunteer soldiers) watchers, military guards, commanders, and fighters related to monitoring post; each one of  them tell memoirs; about special moment or moments to do monitoring and its condition in the war.

These memoirs also consist the mood of fighters during the war, their tools and equipment, and generally, the memoirs represents the process of these activities in one of the military units of Sepah (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) during the year of sacred defense: "Martyr Mohammad Monouchri reputed as Mohammad Gereh, and Seyed Asghar Saemin was one of his outstanding followers, and he was adroit at monitoring.

To gather memoirs according the name of events, in which they were taken place, causes each memoir to have a supplementary role for other memoirs happened in different years and areas.