LibGuides: Al-Nakba: 1948 Palestinian Exodus: Oral History

Personnal Narratives

The Nakba - In the word of Palestinians
Collection of articles on the personal experiences of the Nakba and published by the Institute for Palestine Studies.
Mapping My Return by Salman Abu Sitta
In this rich and moving memoir, Abu Sitta draws on oral histories and personal recollections to vividly evoke the vanished world of his family and home from the late nineteenth century to the eve of the British withdrawal from Palestine and subsequent war.
Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the claims of memory.
The book's essays consider the ways in which Palestinians have remembered and organized themselves around the Nakba. Essay's also analyzes oral histories and written narratives, poetry and cinema , personal testimony and courtroom evidence,
A Narration Without an End: Palestine and the Continuing Nakba.
This study is based on 22 interviews with first, second and third generations of Palestinians refugees narrating the stories of the Nakba.
The Palestinians: from peasants to revolutionaries, a people's history
Through extensive interviews with Palestinians in refugee camps, the author provides a deeply-moving, grassroots story of how the Palestinians came to be who they are today.
Palestinian Women: narrative histories and gendered memory by Fatma Kassem
The book examines and documents the experiences and the historical narrative of ordinary Palestinian women who witnessed the events of 1948 and became involuntary citizens of the State of Israel.
Oral history, colonialist dispossession, and the state: the Palestinian case by Rosemary Sayigh.
Article Citation:
Sayigh, R. (2015). Oral history, colonialist dispossession, and the state: The Palestinian case. Settler Colonial Studies, 5(3), 193-12. doi:10.1080/2201473X.2014.955945
Remembering Palestine in 1948
The book examines the memories of those who participated in and were affected by the events of 1948, and how these events have been mythologized over time. This is a three-way conversation between Palestinian villagers, Jewish-Israeli veterans, and British policemen.
A Senseless, Squalid War: voices from Palestine, 1945-1948 by Norman Rose
The book draws on a rich medley of official documents, private papers, biographies, memoirs, diaries, letters, newspapers, novels, songs, plays, and more. The book reconstructs the attitudes and experiences of the many diverse participants, each voice telling its own story.
What It Means to Be Palestinian by Dina Matar
A collection of personal stories, remembered feelings and reconstructed experiences by different Palestinians whose lives were changed and shaped by history.

Oral History Projects

al-Nakba's Oral History Project
The Project aims to document and retain the Palestinian refugees' experience and memories before, during and after al-Nakba.
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Live interviews or testimonies are conducted with the refugees who witnessed al-Nakba first hand at ages of 12 years and above.
Palestinian Oral History Archive
An archival collection that contains more than 1,000 hours of testimonies with first generation Palestinians and other Palestinian communities in Lebanon.
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The project is being completed in partnership with the AUB Libraries, the Nakba Archive and the Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts (AL-JANA).
Testimonies
Zochrot collects oral histories from Palestinian refugees who witnessed and survived the Nakba of 1948.
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Testimonies are collected mainly from internally displaced Palestinians, those who were expelled from their homes but remained within the boundaries of the new Israeli state.
Nakba Archive
Nakba Archive is an oral history collective established in Lebanon in 2002. Since it’s inception, the Archive has recorded over 650 video interviews with first generation Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
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The Archive has recorded over 650 video interviews with first generation Palestinian refugees in Lebanon about their recollections of life in Palestine and the events that led to their displacement. These eyewitness narratives, with refugees from more than 150 Palestinian villages and towns, recall social and cultural life in Palestine before 1948, relations with neighboring Jewish communities and the British Mandate, the 1948 expulsion, and the early years of exile. The aim has been to document this critical period through the voices and experiences of those who lived through it, and to bear witness in a way shaped not by political symbolism but rather by the rhythms of personal memory.
The Nakba - In The Words of Palestinians
An archival collection of articles* on the personal experiences of the Nakba from the Institute of Palestine Studies.
MECA Palestine Police Oral History
Most of the former Palestine Policemen interviewed for this project served at the end of the Palestine Mandate, typically from 1945-1948 and were 18 or 19 when they joined.
Gender and Settler Colonialism: Women's Oral Histories in the Naqab
The project analyses Naqab Bedouin women's changing political activism against Israeli rule from 1948 to the present through women's own narratives.