Last month we noted here that a feature on the subject of the restored Iraqi Jewish archive which appeared in the Magazine section of the BBC News website failed to mention the controversy surrounding the United States’ planned return of that archive to Iraq.
It was therefore good to learn that the December 9th edition of the BBC World Service programme ‘Newshour’ featured an interview by Razia Iqbal on that subject with former JJAC President Edwin Shuker.
The interview with Mr Shuker can be heard here from 35:00 and it is followed by another interview with Sa’ad Eskander, Director of the Iraq National Archives, who puts the opposite case.
The Point Of No Return blog has more on the subject.
“Edwin describes how on a recent visit to the National Archives exhibit in Washington DC, he turned a corner, there to be confronted with his school certificate. It was issued in 1967, at the time of the Six Day war. He started sobbing. He never imagined he would react with such emotion.
Edwin’s family had left Iraq with forged papers in 1971. It was a difficult time: They had left their house and contents intact. He had also left his precious identity behind. There it was again – staring back at him as a 12-year-old boy.”
