WASHINGTON — In May 2003, just days after American-led coalition forces ousted Saddam Hussein, a group of US soldiers from Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha were searching the headquarters of Saddam’s fearsome intelligence
Illustration from an 1930s Haggadah before (top) restoration and (below) after
restoration (photo: National Archives)
service for signs of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Submerged under four feet of water in the building’s basement, they instead happened upon five centuries’ worth of books and documents relating to Baghdad’s erstwhile Jewish community.
The
thousands of waterlogged materials were quickly rescued and placed
outside, but immediately began accumulating mold in Iraq’s powerful
summer heat and humidity.
Two months later, the National Archives signed
an agreement with Iraq’s Coalition Provisional Authority allowing all
of the material to be shipped to the US for preservation and exhibition,
“under the condition that, following the restoration, the documents are
returned to Iraq.”
3 comments:
We owe a lot to Americans and the British.
I'll just cite two lines of a song
Si c'était pas pour les Ricains
Nous serions tous en Germany
I am always astounded at the way people forget.
sultana
Given the number of Iraqi Jews who emigrated to Israel, if the Archive belongs anywhere, it's in the museum established in Israel to preserve Babylonian Jewish culture.
well said!
I am going to ask a very silly question:
Why can't we photocopy them?
Even money is so well copied that it's dificult to differentiate!
sultana
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