Refugee
When I was 11 my father decided to divorce my mother and marry another woman… It sounds very common, but during the mid-fifties in the Alexandrine Jewish Community it was quite scandalous… to the point that my father, and his new wife decided to make their life elsewhere and emigrated to Milano, Italy in 1955.
In late 1956 Egypt was attacked by Israel, France and Great Britain and these forces occupied the Suez Canal within a few days… By coincidence the day before this surprise attack, my mother and her newly wed husband, Guido, embarked on a liner for a vacation cruise… you can imagine the atmosphere on this ship when news of the attack came known to all…
I was staying with my grandparents, and I remember, in late October 1956, biking to school, ignoring completely about the attack, and being told to go home… until I hear from the school.
Even though the attack in itself was a surprise, there was tension in the air in Egypt, ever since Gamal Abdel Nasser had nationalized the Suez Canal in July 1956, without caring who built the Canal i.e. who owned the Suez Canal…
In Nasser’s view the Canal was built on Egyptian soil, by Egyptian workers, and the colonial forces had gained ample profits to date… it was time for the rightful owners to benefit from this century old construction.
I remember buying dark blue paper, the one we used to wrap our school books with, and tape the paper to the windows… in case we would have an air attack in Alexandria… luckily the only attacks, air land and sea, were in the Sinai and in the Suez Canal area far from Alexandria or Cairo…
My mother returned a few weeks later, school started… and things returned to normal…
Things were changing… First all British and French citizens were given fifteen days to leave the country… that included citizens of Malta, a British colony (my best friend since fourth grade Carmelo Baldacchino was one of them), of Cyprus, another British colony (my mother’s friend Tassia had to leave), even Algerians were viewed as French… victims of colonial rules had to rush back to their homeland…
Egypt was ruled by a corrupt king (Farouk 1) who was deposed and exiled to Italy in 1952… He was deposed by a military Junta led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, who tried to right some wrongs in his homeland… Egypt had a population of twenty million, of which one million were in Alexandria and three million in Cairo… Of the million Alexandrines about one third were non Arabs and practically everyone spoke at least another language… a real “cosmopolitan city”… Being a trading capital, life in Alexandria was pleasant and easy going for almost everyone… Egypt was rich with cotton and revenue paid for the Suez Canal… but most of the riches stayed in Alexandria…
In spite of these monies, the Egyptian "fellah" (farmer) was one of the lowest remunerated in Africa… infant mortality was at an all time high… in brief the have (in Alexandria and Cairo) had much more than the have not (in the farmland)…
So Nasser decided to put an end to it… He “encouraged” the non Arab population to leave Egypt to the Egyptians, even though some families were in Egypt since the Roman Empire, others since the twelfth century, etc…
All of a sudden there was a flux of refugees who were “homeland seekers” throughout Europe… Greece, Italy and France were the principal ones…
On June 29th, 1957… I was one of them… embarking on the Esperia from Alexandria to Napoli… Little did I know that I was seeing Alexandria for the last time…
I was a “profugo” (refugee)
When I was 11 my father decided to divorce my mother and marry another woman… It sounds very common, but during the mid-fifties in the Alexandrine Jewish Community it was quite scandalous… to the point that my father, and his new wife decided to make their life elsewhere and emigrated to Milano, Italy in 1955.
In late 1956 Egypt was attacked by Israel, France and Great Britain and these forces occupied the Suez Canal within a few days… By coincidence the day before this surprise attack, my mother and her newly wed husband, Guido, embarked on a liner for a vacation cruise… you can imagine the atmosphere on this ship when news of the attack came known to all…
I was staying with my grandparents, and I remember, in late October 1956, biking to school, ignoring completely about the attack, and being told to go home… until I hear from the school.
Even though the attack in itself was a surprise, there was tension in the air in Egypt, ever since Gamal Abdel Nasser had nationalized the Suez Canal in July 1956, without caring who built the Canal i.e. who owned the Suez Canal…
In Nasser’s view the Canal was built on Egyptian soil, by Egyptian workers, and the colonial forces had gained ample profits to date… it was time for the rightful owners to benefit from this century old construction.
I remember buying dark blue paper, the one we used to wrap our school books with, and tape the paper to the windows… in case we would have an air attack in Alexandria… luckily the only attacks, air land and sea, were in the Sinai and in the Suez Canal area far from Alexandria or Cairo…
My mother returned a few weeks later, school started… and things returned to normal…
Things were changing… First all British and French citizens were given fifteen days to leave the country… that included citizens of Malta, a British colony (my best friend since fourth grade Carmelo Baldacchino was one of them), of Cyprus, another British colony (my mother’s friend Tassia had to leave), even Algerians were viewed as French… victims of colonial rules had to rush back to their homeland…
Egypt was ruled by a corrupt king (Farouk 1) who was deposed and exiled to Italy in 1952… He was deposed by a military Junta led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, who tried to right some wrongs in his homeland… Egypt had a population of twenty million, of which one million were in Alexandria and three million in Cairo… Of the million Alexandrines about one third were non Arabs and practically everyone spoke at least another language… a real “cosmopolitan city”… Being a trading capital, life in Alexandria was pleasant and easy going for almost everyone… Egypt was rich with cotton and revenue paid for the Suez Canal… but most of the riches stayed in Alexandria…
In spite of these monies, the Egyptian "fellah" (farmer) was one of the lowest remunerated in Africa… infant mortality was at an all time high… in brief the have (in Alexandria and Cairo) had much more than the have not (in the farmland)…
So Nasser decided to put an end to it… He “encouraged” the non Arab population to leave Egypt to the Egyptians, even though some families were in Egypt since the Roman Empire, others since the twelfth century, etc…
All of a sudden there was a flux of refugees who were “homeland seekers” throughout Europe… Greece, Italy and France were the principal ones…
On June 29th, 1957… I was one of them… embarking on the Esperia from Alexandria to Napoli… Little did I know that I was seeing Alexandria for the last time…
I was a “profugo” (refugee)
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