Story of the Month — Hayat Balabsi

This is a story from our modern national literature by Mr. Najati Sidqi, from his book "The Sorrowful Sisters," recently published by Dar al-Ma'arif in Egypt.

After the massacre of Deir Yassin, the men of the Red Crescent found the body of a girl in a nightgown, cast down near a byroad leading to the village. Some of them recognized her: it was the schoolteacher Hayat Balabsi.

I met her for the first time in the last months of 1947, when she submitted to the broadcasting station a literary piece, enclosing with it a letter in which she said: "I hope I may be able to broadcast this talk of mine at the earliest possible opportunity."

A few days after this talk arrived, I met one of the judges of Jerusalem, and he mentioned Hayat to me and commended her warmly to my care... Then I met one of the inspectors of education in Palestine, and he called my attention to Hayat's talk and the need to give it attention... Then I met one of the men of letters of Jerusalem, and he said to me: Will you not take an interest in Hayat and her talks? She is a girl who needs help and encouragement... Then I met the headmistress of a school in Jaffa, and she asked me whether I had received a talk from Hayat, and inquired how far I was prepared to help her.

So I asked myself: who might this Hayat Balabsi be?... And what is the reason for all this interest in her?... And I began to watch for a chance to meet her and to know her at close range.

On the afternoon of one of the days of January 1948, when snow was falling thickly in Jerusalem and cold, violent winds were blowing hard, Hayat came in to see me, wrapped in a simple coat, her head wound in a woolen kerchief studded with little pieces of snow, so that she appeared as though a wreath of lemon blossom — the symbol of chastity and purity — encircled her lovely head.

In that meeting I learned from her her tragedy:

She had lost her father not long before; her mother was crippled and bedridden; her sister was small and unable to work. So there fell upon her shoulders the burden of caring for her mother and her sister, of managing all the affairs of the house, and at the same time of working to earn a living, since her family had no source of income to live on, and her father had left her no sum of money nor any kind of property.

Thus she found herself compelled to leave school before obtaining the matriculation certificate, and to seek work as a supplementary teacher in an elementary school. At the department of education she was told: We cannot find you a vacant post in Jerusalem, but we do need a supplementary teacher for the village of Deir Yassin. So Hayat accepted the work in the village for a monthly salary of eight pounds.

The village of Deir Yassin lies to the west of Jerusalem, at a distance of ten kilometers, and means of transportation to it were lacking; so Hayat was obliged to make the journey there and back on foot. She would leave Jerusalem at six o'clock in the morning, passing on her way through certain of the Jewish quarters of Jerusalem — Mea Shearim, Beit Israel, Mahane Yehuda, and Romema... then through a rugged valley until she reached the settlement of Beit HaKerem, and from there she headed straight for Deir Yassin.

This was the road of sorrows that Hayat crossed twice a day, summer and winter.

And though she was a bold young woman, she sometimes felt a dread as she crossed the valley, fearing something whose nature she did not know... so she would wait a while until the village women going to the village or returning from it passed by her, and she would go along with them... But this fear began to fade little by little, and Hayat came to cross the valley by herself, greeting the plowmen and the shepherds, and they would answer her with affection and welcome, asking her about their children and how far they were advancing and succeeding in their lessons, and praying God to keep her under the eye of His care and protection.

Nor did Hayat confine her work in the village to teaching; at certain times of the day she worked as a nurse as well, supplying whoever needed first aid with various medicines, and visiting the sick in their huts; and if she saw among them one whose condition required admission to the hospital, she would get in touch at once with the health department in Jerusalem by telephone, or go herself to that department on her way home.

Hardly had Hayat completed her first year of work in Deir Yassin before she became the idol of its inhabitants, her name a synonym for education, purity, and true patriotism.

One day the girl returned to Jerusalem and found that her mother had departed this life. She bore the shock with a strong heart, did not give way before the cruel turns of fate, and persevered in her work at Deir Yassin with the resolve and steadfastness stamped upon her nature; and the department of education raised her monthly salary by two more pounds.

Then the United Nations proclaimed the realization of what Herzl had dreamed of in 1895 in his book "The Jewish State," and the Arabs rose to defend their lands and the places of their livelihood; and the angel of death stood erect, scythe in hand, reaping heads by ones, then by tens, then by hundreds... And Hayat had to choose one of two things: either to stay shut in her house awaiting her lot in marriage, or to live in Deir Yassin and carry on her struggle in the cause of learning and health.

The girl did not hesitate long. She took up some of her belongings and moved to the village, and lived in one of the rooms of her school.

In that room the teacher endured every kind of privation and hardship of living... For light there was the oil lamp... and for warmth, the blanket she wrapped about herself as she went over the copybooks and prepared the lessons.

The troubles spread swiftly until they reached Deir Yassin as well... And since this village was surrounded by four Jewish settlements, it feared the treachery of its neighbors, and so it formed a garrison of its young women and young men, and Hayat was one of its mainstays.

She said to me one day: It happened, while I was practicing rifle fire, that a bullet went off ululating into a neighboring settlement!...

Days and weeks passed, during which relations between Deir Yassin and the settlements around it grew ever more strained; and the villagers did not know that the Jewish command had chosen their village as the opening of a new stage in its "military" plans.

At three o'clock on the morning of a black day, two thousand Jews armed with rapid-firing rifles and daggers closed in upon the sleeping inhabitants of the village. A battle broke out between them and the garrison which did not last long; the aggressors overcame the fighting villagers, and the massacre began!...

As for Hayat, no sooner did the whine of the bullets and the bursting of the bombs reach her than she sprang from her bed in her nightgown and fled headlong through the fields and among the hills... After a few moments she found herself in a safe place outside the village, and it was within her power to take refuge in another Arab village. But at that moment she heard a moaning close by; she made toward its source, and found herself before two wounded men of the garrison of Deir Yassin. She went up to them, tore off a part of her gown, and bandaged their wounds with it; then she made up her mind to put them in a cave in that quarter until she could inform the men of the Red Crescent about them. She lifted one of them onto her shoulder and walked with him toward the cave... After a walk of ten meters, the air was rent by the sound of rapid shots; the wounded man fell dead, and Hayat fell over him, drenched in her blood.

As for the second wounded man, it was fated for him to live and to tell the ending of the life of a girl who had tasted struggle in the cause of learning, sorrow in the cause of family, and heroism in the cause of the homeland!...