Yusef Abu Haja, aged 112 from al-Khader discussing the Ottoman period and World War I

Yusef Abu Haja (112 years old from al-Khader) interviewed by Nisreen al-Qutb on 12 April 1995.

He discusses the following: people were not prepared for World War I; people used to live off whatever they harvested, especially wheat; his conscription into the Ottoman army and how he ran away; locust plague - how people had to collect the eggs and anyone refusing to do this would be sent to prison; Jewish settlers came to Palestine, especially in Jerusalem; the situation when the British arrived and the uprisings against them; the drought year of 1916.

Original audio recording: cassette tape.

Transcript: word for word.

In the original collection at Bethlehem University this cassette tape was categorised as File 15 of Box 8.

This fileset exists as part of the Ottoman Empire and World War I collection within the Bethlehem University Oral History project of the Planet Bethlehem Archive.