355th Night of Memory – 3

Compiled by: Leila Rostami
Translated by: M.B. Khoshnevisan

2024-9-3

The 355^th show of Night of Memory titled “Songs and Hymns of the Time of Captivity" was held on 3^rd of Esfand 1402 (February 22, 2024) attended by the freed POWs and combatants of the holy defense in Sooreh Hall of the Art Center of Islamic Revolution. The “Album of Songs of Hope” was also unveiled during the show. In this show, Nasser Qarehbaqi, Amir Hossein Tarvand and Abbas Ebrahimi retold their memoirs. It was hosted by Davood Salehi.

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The second narrator of the show Dr. Amit Hossein Tarvand was captured by the Iraqi forces on 18^th of Bahman 1361 (February 7, 1983) at the age of 19 and was freed on 6^th of Shahrivar 1369 (August 28, 1990) and returned to Iran. At the beginning of his speech, he said, “There were two dimensions of spirituality during the captivity: one was prayers and elegies and the other is hymns. A series of hymns such as "22 Bahman... / the day of self-sacrifice..." remained in our memories that we wrote them down to have them; but for a series of hymns, only the song was in our mind and the lyrics did not come to our mind. That's why we were trying to create poems on it. Our poets in the camp were the late Yahya Asadi and Javad Khorramdel. We requested them to sing an elegy and a hymn for us. Hymns were also categorized. For example, a series of hymns were about people like the Imam (God bless his soul) or Haj Agha Abou Torabi.

There were 474 prisoners in the ward no. 2 of Al-Anbar Camp. Some 15 of us had diploma. The rest had lower education. There were also a number of old men. We had also songs about education.

I had written one or two verses about each and every guy of the rest house. Or the chief of the Tikrit 5 camp, Hasan Sa’atlou, was a helicopter pilot. I wrote a song about him like this: "Hassan Ali Sa’atlou / responsible for crowing". Of course, we also had comedy shows. For example, Ali Tarighi was in the role of a reporter who came with a microphone and asked: "Introduce yourself." The opposite role would answer: "revolution", then Ali would ask again: "I'm sorry, I didn't understand!" Would you introduce yourself louder? The other party said: "Revolution..." He said for the third time: "Could you introduce yourself completely again?" The answer of the other party: "Islamic revolution..." Then you ask: "When were you born?" He would answer: "22^nd of Bahman... 22^nd of Bahman..." Then he would ask: "What day is 22^nd of Bahman?" He would answer: "The day of self-sacrifice / the day of our freedom / the day of saving the motherland". Then he asks: "How are you?" He would answer: "I'm in a bad mood". You ask: "Who is your enemy?" He replied: "America... America... / Shame on your tricks / The blood of our youth is dripping from your grip...". In short, we talked about the martyrs, we talked about the Imam, we talked about the combatants. It was a complete interview.

It was forbidden to get together and also to have paper and pens. The late Yahya Assadzadeh was our poet whose head had been hit by shrapnel and he had become visually impaired. He could not see to write. He recited poetry and Mr. Katebi wrote on the plaster walls above him with the zinc spoons we ate with. The track of the spoon remains on the wall like a pencil. After the Red Cross would come and give us pens, we would write the poems on letter paper.

The narrator added, “The shape of the rest houses was different in different camps. Our rest house was rectangular in shape. For example, 5 meters wide and 9 meters long. It had 10 windows. We were 61 people. The guys tied a piece of mirror or glass to a piece of wood and passed through the net so that they could see outside so that the Iraqis would not come inside. Sometimes the Iraqis took us to punish us.

In Bahman of 1361 (January 1983), I was a fanatic Basij who had been captured; a wounded prisoner in Al-Anbar Camp. There was a captain named Captain Saleh who showed himself to be very kind. He tricked the guys to get their attention. Once, he gathered us. We also had a translator named Eidi Mohammad Rasouli, who was standing on the right side of the captain. Captain Saleh said: "Guys! I went on leave and came back. But what a leave! Since I left here, I was thinking about you all the time. I saw that you have a family and you like to visit your families. I went and knocked on the door and said, O God! Is it possible for these guys to go and knock on the door of their houses one day! My daughter opened the door. I wish this scene would be repeated for them. Until I spread the table. Whatever I did, I remembered you. I came here thinking about you. What a vacation I went on! I remembered you all. We would like you to go to your country, but that person doesn't let us... - he mentioned the Imam's name. As soon as he mentioned the name of Imam (God bless his soul), 474 people all sent Salawat together. The second Salawat, the third Salawat. He turned back to Eidi and said: "Did I mention the name of the Prophet?" Did I mention the name of the Messenger of Allah? He said: "No!" He said: "Then why did they send Salawat?!" He said: "Sir! When they hear the name of their leader, they send Salawat." When he heard this, he found out that whatever he had done went down the drain. Then, he started cursing. He left there and we never saw him again. After that, we called him Captain Salawat, because Salawat had done his job.

Referring to a memory about the holy defense, the narrator said’ “We were in the 15th Brigade of Imam Hassan (PBUH) in Operation Preliminary Valfajr. All the equipment of this brigade was a trophy; that is, we either opened the Klashnikov or RPG that we had, and put them in diesel or they were filled with mud. On the night of the operation, our gunner, who had trained in shooting and wanted to train us, did not have a machine gun with which to train. He said to our commander: "I don't have a machine gun!" The commander said: "Your machine gun is on the Iraqi embankment; you take it whenever you reach it." I saw this with my own eyes and it is not a quote.

To be continued...