363rd Night of Memory – 2

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

2025-1-29

The 363rd show of Night of Memory titled "lovely war" was held on Monday 1st of Azar 1403 (November 21, 2024) in Sooreh Hall of the Art Center of Islamic Revolution. During the show, Mrs. Maryam Katebi and Mr. Davood Amirian recounted their memoirs. Davood Salehi hosted the show.

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In continuation of her memoirs, Mrs. Salehi said, “We arrived in the city of Sanandaj. We were told to go the garrison. When we arrived near the barracks, they kept saying, "Ladies, walk in a zigzag pattern." Both my parents were tailors, but I don't know anything about sewing or sewing threads like zigzag and shirring, and my brothers still sew better than me. My brother also sews my chador. I said, "Oh my God! Sewing here is driving me crazy! Which one was the zigzag? It was 7 and 8! Which one was it!" We walked like this, the sound of gunfire coming from our ears. With great difficulty, we went up the Ostandari Street of Sanandaj and I bumped into a man wearing khaki. I looked up. He said, "Sisters! Welcome." I said, "Sir! Are they killing us?" He said, "No, Dad! These are our own guys." Now who was this man? He was the same "Mammad," as the boy called him, "Brother Mammad" and "Brother Ahmad." He was the same brother, Mohammad Boroujerdi.
I saw Mohammad Boroujerdi six months later. "Brother Boroujerdi, you lied to me! You said they were our brothers!" He said, "Dad, I was right. Are our own brothers bothering to shoot at anyone?! They were our brothers; you didn't really understand the issue. You asked me what was going on? Is it a fight? I said no, our brothers are shooting. Someone was bothering us, and we were shooting. You yourself didn't understand in your own mind what our own brothers were shooting for! I didn't lie to you. Komeleh and the Democrats were shooting to catch you. Our brothers were shooting at them too." Because Komeleh and the Democrat knew that the IRGC was very sensitive and if Komeleh and the Democrat caught the women, it would be very difficult for the IRGC. Mrs. Katebi continued; Brother Boroujerdi said: “A Chinook [helicopter] or a [Stoke] helicopter is coming to take you to Marivan.” We went to Marivan by Chinook. When we got off the helicopter, Brother Ahmad [Motevaselian] and brother Hemmat and a few other brothers had arrived, none of whom we knew! The brothers said: “Sisters! Get in the car.” No matter how much we looked inside this garrison, we didn’t see any other car except a dump truck. We looked, we said: “Where should we go and get in?” They said: “Please get in the car.” Well, imagine 70 men, two women! Where should we go and sit?! We sat next to the dump truck driver with our bags and belongings. The brothers also sat in the back of the dump truck and sent salawat. A little while after we left, an army jeep arrived and brother Ahmad [Metovassilian] and brothers Hemmat and Mohammad Tavassoli were sitting inside. Ahmad came down and shouted, "My brother...! Why did you put these two in front of the car! Come down, sisters! Come down and see..." We said, "Oh... How rude..." We came down. He said, "Now go sit in the back." We said, "How can we sit in the back with these men!" From a religious perspective, we said, "What will we answer to God if the men hold our hands?" We went up with great difficulty. Brother Ahmad said, "You don't even sit in the front, you sit in the middle." We said, "Very well." We went up and sat in the middle. This car would fall on the curb, the men would fall on us, we would fall on the men. We would say to ourselves, "Oh God! If Imam Khomeini finds out, he'll kill us." I didn't say, "If God finds out, I would say, "If Imam Khomeini finds out." I kept saying to myself, "Dr. Fayaz Bakhsh! God forbid, what are you doing?" Brother Ahmad asked, "Sisters, what are you doing here?" We said, "We came for the hospital." He said, "The hospital is one of your jobs, we want to take you to secure the road." There we learned that Mohammad Boroujerdi and Ahmad Motevaselian had insisted on our going to Kurdistan to "secure the road." I didn't even know what road security was! We said, "What do you mean?" He said, "It means that your main job is to guard the road." Look, when Kurdistan fell, the IRGC and army were standing at the gates of every city, and they couldn't search and inspect women's bodies according to Islamic law. The Komalas of Tehran, Shirazi, and Isfahani had all gathered and gone to Kurdistan, and the women were wearing Kurdish clothes, they had hidden weapons under their clothes, and with the weapons they took out from under their clothes and armed the men, Kurdistan fell and was about to fall out of Iran's hands.
Kurdistan fell and misters martyr Beheshti, Bahonar, Taleghani, and everyone came and talk. But we were witnessing the last days of Kurdistan's fall. Now they were taking us to Kurdistan to start searching and inspecting women. They brought a night letter that the women who enter Kurdistan are Mrs. Dabbagh's comrades. Where is Mrs. Dabbagh and where are we?!
Late martyr Kak Jalal said to me 20 years later: “Mrs. Katebi! When did you go to Lebanon?” I said: “I have never been to Lebanon!” He said: “No, Dad, when did your father allow you to go to Lebanon? I myself was the one who brought the news to Komala that several of Ms. Dabbagh’s female comrades had come from Lebanon and that you had entered the city.” This news had been given in the night newspapers. Brother Boroujerdi and brother Ahmad [Metevaselian] had told Mrs. Dabbagh to train several women to come and provide security for the Kurdistan road. At that time, the families would not accept such a thing. I had never gone to any city other than our own home to spend the night, whether it was to the camp or somewhere else. We used to go to family houses a lot, but my father always said that you should stay at our home at night, especially the girls. He always told us, "You have to be so good at school that you're only accepted into universities in Tehran, and you go to university like you would in high school, and then come home and sleep at night."
I told brother Ahmad, “No sir, we go for road security. We will leave for Tehran today.” I said, “I was right, there is nothing.” Brother Tavassoli said, “Sisters! Where do you want to go?” Didn’t we take by helicopter?” we said, “Yes.” He said, “Then how do you want to go now?” We said, “we will go from everywhere you say.” He said, “The road is no longer in our hands, it is controlled by the Komoleh. We brought you by helicopter because we don’t have a road. How can you say we’re going now? Brother Ahmad said, ‘Go,’ you said, ‘Okay, we’ll go!’ If you go by road, Komeleh will catch you.” We cried and lamented, we said, “Okay, now let us go and call our homes and tell our families.” He said, “We don’t have a phone here!” We said, “We’ll write a letter. At least someone should take our letters to our families to inform them that we’re here for a week.” He said, “We’re telling you we don’t have a road, we don’t have a phone, what are you telling us?” We were literally wondering what to do, O God!
We went to the hospital on the first and second days and stayed there. On the third day, brother Mohammad Tavassoli, who was a close friend of Ahmad Motevasselian and they grew up together, went to university and high school together, and did everything together. He would come and say, "By God, he's not violent! That's what he says, brother Ahmad is our commander. Don't think badly of him. Now, if you go on the road, the Komoleh catches you, they kill you. You shouldn't go. Now, we're going to inform your families that you're stuck here."
These events passed and our one week became 8 months later. Brother Ahmad had placed two IRGC members who knew Kurdish in charge of the telecommunications, hospital, bank and all departments of Marivan. The phone was connected a month or two later, but it was not always available. Suddenly they would announce that the phone was connected and we would rush to the phone booth. Several phone calls were made, but they would all return empty-handed. At that time, we understood all of each other's calls. Imagine, our telecommunications department was a room of approximately 20 square meters, with two or three tables inside. There were three or four benches where we would sit, three or four telephones attached to the wall. Suddenly, someone would say: “Sister Katebi! Number 9707555 (that was our telephone number at the time) Go to cabin one” (1) was written above it. I would stand there. The voice of my mother is heard in the next cabin; that is, we were so close. We would learn each other’s telephone numbers. For example, when we were waiting for our turn, we would find out where their houses were. For example, we knew the people from Tehran.
He added, one of the telecommunications officials, who was also from the north of the country, liked one of the women in the hospital. He had gone and told one of the men to tell his wife that he liked that woman. At that time, the boys could not express their interest directly or talk to the other person. We also said: "If you want us to arrange that girl for you, whenever the phone is connected, you come and tell us first. If you go and tell the IRGC, the IRGC members will take your turn, and we cannot make the phone call." This poor man said: "Brother Ahmad, my father will kill me if he finds out about this." We said: "No, we won't tell anyone. Come and tell us until the phone is connected." When the phone was connected, this poor man would shout in (a Gilani accent): "Miss Katebi!" We would find out and rush into the telecommunications. When the brothers came, they would say: "Sisters, you are smelling... the phone is connected. How do you know! They always sit in the phone line." Taqi Rastegar's brother was from Qom. He would say: "In our alley, there is a woman named Miss Kobra who has a phone. I call, Hello, Miss Kobra! We are all alive. She will find out that 30 people are alive. She goes to houses of all of us and say, "Your son...! Your son...! Your son...! called and said we are alive. Every minute, these sisters are giving this phone to her, giving that phone to her mother... these sisters are very naughty. We kept saying, "This Rastegar is a nosy person, he always taunts us."
In her final part, she recounted another story; we had to guard for four hours. Women 4 hours, men 2 hours. We always protested to brother Ahmad. Brother Ahmad said: "Because there should be three of us, we have less manpower, the women rest more, and when the operation starts, we have to go. While we bring the wounded, you can rest; as a result, you have to post for 4 hours a day." It was the 11th or 12th of Azar 1359 (December 2 or 3, 1980). It was also snowing heavily. We came to the room from inside the ward. We lived inside the ward itself. We all came to have dinner in the room. We didn't have electricity at that time. Our dinner was bread and cheese every night. We got so angry. I myself am a big eater. I was really sad. I was saying, "Oh God, if Komeleh catches me, they won't give me anything to eat!" We came and spread the table, and suddenly we saw four or five small, gray mice climbing over our heads. We screamed...screamed... The brothers thought the Komeleh had attacked us. They ran with their guns. We jumped out of the room, still screaming. Brother Mamqani came in and asked, "Sisters, what happened?!" We said, "Mouse." He shouted, "May God kill you, nuts to you. What does a mouse have to do with anything?" I said, “If you had come here yourself, you would have seen a mouse right now, and you would have been scared.  Then, you're telling us not to be afraid." We were crying and wailing, saying, "We're not going into that room again." We had a flashlight and a battery in our pockets because of the serums we were using to control the patients. I took this flashlight and saw that the cheeses were completely black with mouse droppings. Our tablecloth was also made of nylon. Mouse urine, for example, had been spilled on it. I took these loaves of bread and threw them behind the operating room. It was a place with a roof. Even the animals were hungry there. I apologize to the families, we didn't have room for many of the martyrs, we would leave many of these martyrs in the corner of the hospital and the dogs would come. It was a very difficult problem for us. We were so short of manpower that we wished someone would come and save us and kill the dogs. When the vans and ambulances came, seven or eight wild dogs would come in with them behind every ambulance and van that brought in the wounded. Keeping the dogs away was a big and difficult problem for us. In short, we didn't have dinner to eat. One of the brothers came from the IRGC, named martyr Alireza Mehr-Aeein. We didn't know the surnames of many of the brothers. Many of the brothers were called by their first names in Kurdistan. For example, if they had brought three martyrs and all three were named Reza, we wouldn't know what surname to write on their sheets. Alireza's brother came and said, "Sister Katebi! Do you have anything to give us?" I said, "No, brother Alireza! The mice came tonight, there was mouse droppings on the bread and cheese, they became wet and unclean." I took the breads and threw them behind the operating room door,” he said angrily’ “Did you take the breads and threw them behind the operating room door? What does this mean! Three of the guys just returned from reconnaissance mission, they haven’t eaten anything for three days. Go and bring them back. Stop pretending so modern, the bread has become impure...! Go take it and bring it. They are hungry, we don’t have anything to give them in the army at all.” He took the bread and shook it, picked up the excrement and blew. I said: “Alireza! It’s all impure.” He said: “It’s okay, don’t you have anything else?” One of the sisters said: “What are you doing, Alireza?! It’s a sin for God to give these.” It was a sister from Isfahan, who had just returned from a leave from Isfahan and said: “I have a can of beans. The day we were coming from Sanandaj, they gave me and Nahid two. We ate one and left the other for the rainy day.” We said: "You are so cowardly, we are dying of hunger, and then, did you give this canned food to Alireza?!" The city of Dezli was in the hands of Komeleh, the Democrat, and... Who do you think those three brothers who went to reconnoiter the city of Dezli were? Martyrs Ahmad Motevaselian, Mohammad Boroujerdi, and Nasser Kazemi.

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The second narrator; Davood Amirian; was born in 1349 (1970). He entered the war as a teenager, looking at the war with his teenage eyes. When the war ended, he slowly began writing his memoirs in 1980, and these memoirs became one of the most readable books of the Sacred Defense period, especially for children and teenagers.

At the beginning of his words, the narrator said, “The Basij was a popular movement and was formed from the hearts of the people with the intelligence of the Imam. The Basij members were trained in the mosques in (1358) 1979. At that time, we were very young and were not allowed to be a Basiji member. Because of this, many people forged their identity and birth certificates to join the Basij. It was very strict, we had not reached the required age either. We were both short or thin, and in order to go to the front, we had to bring our father's consent, and many of them put their big toes on the paper instead of their father's fingerprints or paid an old man to play the role of their father. Some of us also ran away because we had no idea about the war. We thought that when we got to Ahvaz, there would be the war; but we didn't know that we had to go to the garrisons. Among all the people who had gone to the war zone by cheating and running away, one person had a history of 17 escapes, each time he had been sent back from the front. That's why anyone who registered to go to the front was very lucky. At that time, we memorized the resalah of the Ulema and we were asked strange things to register. When I went to register, I answered all the questions, but the last person in charge of Selection Center asked who Sheikh Halabi was? He is the founder of the Hojjatiyeh Association and I answered, "The Leader of Afghanistan!" The person in charge of the center smiled upon hearing this answer and...
He continued; it wasn't that there was constant crying, wailing, and chest-beating in the front or that the combatants were all constantly mystics, there was a man in the front who would pour water over his head at night and perform ablution 50 seconds before sunrise and then quickly fall asleep again, but he was one of the bravest in operations. They told one person to take 40 Iraqis back, even though he didn't even know how to drive, and he said that the Iraqis got into a Toyota pickup truck and he was crushed between four Iraqis in the front seat of the car. One of the Iraqis was holding the steering wheel, one was changing gears, and the other was stepping on the clutch, and he was just managing, and they were driving themselves, as if they too wanted to be captured by the Iranians. He said, "I had a hard time getting back." We even lost our way twice, but when we reached our destination, the Iraqis got out and came forward one by one and shook hands with me, and I didn't even know how to get back to the front line!
At the end, Amirian said, “The war is bad in itself and has nothing but hardship and separation, but amid all these wars, interesting things happen which are heard less.

The End