WEBVTT - Hijacked 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.719 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:09.360 My parents do not ask any questions about my time 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:13.800 in Jordan. Maybe they think they understand what happened from 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:17.360 reading the New York Times, listening to Walter Cronkite on 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:21.680 the CBS Nightly News, and receiving occasional updates from the 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:25.200 State Department and the airlines. Maybe they just want me 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:27.920 to rest. Or maybe they don't know how to talk 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.560 to me about such a delicate topic. We've never discussed 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:35.519 anything real. We laugh and make light of most matters, 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:40.000 even serious ones, keeping pain unspoken and as far as 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:44.760 possible from where we sit. We can't joke about the hijacking, 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:45.960 so we avoid it. 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:53.280 That's Mimmy Nickter, cultural anthropologist, Professor Emerita at University of 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:57.960 Arizona's School of Anthropology, an author of four books, most 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:04.039 recently her first memoir, a memoir of Terrorism, Trauma and Resilience. 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:09.040 Mimy's is a story of a terrifying incident that becomes 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:12.520 a secret in its aftermath, and the way a legacy 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:16.000 of keeping secrets within a family can form a pattern 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:29.040 it takes a lifetime to break. I'm Danny Shapiro, and 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:32.440 this is Family secrets, the secrets that are kept from us, 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:35.640 the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:42.560 keep from ourselves. Mimmy, tell me about the landscape of 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:47.080 your childhood in nineteen fifties sixties Brooklyn. 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:55.000 Okay, Well, I would say the landscape it was black 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.800 and white, and yet the reality is that it was 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:03.920 very gray. Talking about the internal landscape here. From the 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:09.320 time I was about seven, family secrets started early. My 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:13.280 mother instructed my older sister and me that if anyone 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.560 asked how my brother was doing, we should always say 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:20.680 he was fine. Now, my brother was eight years older 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.160 than me, so by the time he was fifteen, he 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:26.920 often stayed in his room when people visited, and he 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:29.680 didn't go to see us when we went to see 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:34.360 family members. And I didn't really feel comfortable having friends 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.280 over because of how he sort of slumped on the 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:41.880 sofa in his sleeless undershirt. He would stare into space 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:47.040 and laugh to himself, and I didn't understand what was 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:47.639 wrong with him. 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.840 I was quite young, but I knew something was wrong. 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.120 And you know what, night I would lay in bed 0:02:55.240 --> 0:03:00.359 reading a book my way of escaping the household, and 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.120 I would hear him through the very thin wall that 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.920 my room shared with the bathroom, sort of mumbling speech 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:10.239 and talking and whispering, and he had this. I figured 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:12.920 he had an imaginary audience in there with him. And 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:15.760 I hear him like hissing, like he was talking to snakes. 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.960 And I was an imaginative little girl, and I couldn't 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.360 get his sounds out of my head. And yet it 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.480 scared me that whatever was wrong with him might be 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:29.360 waiting for me, that something ran in our family. 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:34.080 And I never asked my parents though, why. 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:38.960 He hardly smiled, but he did laugh, and he laughed 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.800 when nobody was there. And why he talked about things 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:46.200 that were never going to happen, like swimming the English Channel, 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.680 for example. I just knew many things were not to 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:50.400 be talked about. 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:55.680 Was he in the world that you and your family 0:03:56.080 --> 0:04:00.280 lived in in Brooklyn, in your neighborhood, your community, extended family? 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.280 This was never talked to it. Did he go to school? 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:04.880 Yes? 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:09.320 I grew up in a religious Jewish family, and he 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:13.040 went to a yeshiva with my sister, she was two 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:16.720 years younger than he was. And yes, he went to school, 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:19.799 and by the time he was thirteen, the principal told 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:23.400 my parents that they should take him to a doctor 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:26.960 because something was a little was off with him. So 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:32.320 he had an early on set schizophrenia, and so he 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:33.760 lived in the house. 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:36.839 I mean, he was okay until he was maybe twelve. 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.120 Did you have that language early on set schizophrenia? Was that? 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:42.880 Were those words you ever heard? 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:47.520 No, he was not diagnosed because my parents this was 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:51.440 a family secret, and my mother and father both felt 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.600 that they didn't want to talk about it, and they thought, 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.640 actually he might outgrow it. It was some kind of 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:03.320 a phase. Mental health was not something that was discussed. 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:04.720 I think it was. 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:09.039 Partly my brother was supposed to be a doctor. That's 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.080 what my father wanted, and he was very angry. So 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.479 there was anger in the household from my father when 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:15.119 he was home. 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:18.279 Tell me a little bit more about sort of the 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:21.400 shape of your family, And I'm also curious, was this 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.919 Orthodox community in Brooklyn that kind of area where the 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:28.880 whole kind of culture and community is observant. 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:34.800 I grew up in Flatbush and there were two kinds 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:39.039 of communities joined to live side by side there, both 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:45.440 Italian Catholics and Jews. And I think our family life 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:50.080 and many of the Jewish families in our neighborhood revolved 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:55.120 around the people we knew from temple. My mother decided 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.480 that I should go to an Orthodox she vote because 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:01.160 she wanted me to skip first, so I did that, 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:04.120 and then that was another point. I think that was 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.640 uncomfortable for me because I went to a school where 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:11.760 the girls and boys were from a much more religious 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.719 background than I was, and so I knew pretty early 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.919 on that I really didn't fit there. And so even 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.400 then if somebody asked me sort of what synagogue my 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:25.839 family belonged to, I couldn't answer, because it was not 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:29.200 the right synagogue. That would be a sure giveaway that 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:33.520 I didn't fit. On the exterior, I would say we 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:38.960 looking in from the outside, we looked like a happy family. 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.919 That's not what was going on on the inside. I 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:47.640 really didn't know my father very well. My father had 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:52.599 a business in Philadelphia, and he would leave Sunday night 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:57.400 and walk to the subway station going to Manhattan and 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:00.520 take the train to Philly where he lived in a 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:04.440 rooming house kind of situation, and he'd come home on 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:11.679 Friday before Shabus and when he was home, he laid 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:17.520 around on the couch napping, usually with the newspaper New 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:21.840 York Times covering him. And he was a very religious man. 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.680 He prayed every day, went to the synagogue, and had 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:28.760 he lived in Brooklyn all the time, I'm sure he 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:33.040 would have been very active in the temple itself, in 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:35.760 some kind of position there. But he wasn't. He didn't 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:39.920 have that kind of life. He was busy working. And 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:44.400 my mother, I never knew what she did actually, but 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:47.080 I knew she had a desk and she had files, 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:49.840 so I thought it was important. Those were times when 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:55.080 I wasn't able to disturb her. I think what really 0:07:55.160 --> 0:08:02.520 characterized my mother. She was outgoing, friendly, liked to talk 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:10.160 to people, but because she was also very ashamed of Joel, 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.200 she couldn't have a normal life. She couldn't bring people 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:18.800 into the home spontaneously. There was something in her life 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.040 that she couldn't talk about that she always had to 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:24.280 cover up. And I think at that time, during the 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:28.440 fifties and sixties, schizophrenia was often blame on the mother's 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:33.320 parenting style, her rejection, specifically her rejection of her child 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:38.079 during infancy and childhood, and so I think she carried 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:43.520 that with her silently. My mother loved music. She had 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:48.559 gone to Juilliard and had to drop out to go 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.959 to work. All her life, music was probably the most 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:59.440 important thing to her. Saturdays, she would cocoon herself in 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:04.240 her bed room for the three hours of the Metropolitan Opera. 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.319 And even when I was really little, like five years old, 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.880 I wasn't allowed to disturb her. That was just the rule. 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:14.560 And sometimes I would go and look through the keyhole 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:16.960 of her room and see what she was doing, and 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:19.080 she looked like she might be sleeping, and I knew 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.600 she wasn't sleeping. She was just enjoying this three hour opera. 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:25.679 And I think she got a lot of emotional pleasure 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:28.760 from that that she couldn't express. 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:35.040 So you left the yeshiva and went to a high 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:36.080 school in Brooklyn. 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.480 By eighth grade, I was just done. I was done 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:43.880 with the whole the mismatch between what I felt when 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:47.160 I was outside of the house and what I felt 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:50.680 inside the house. And I mean, I didn't have words 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.240 for it, but I told my parents I wanted to 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:55.920 go to a public high school. 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:56.600 And they said okay. 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.080 And I think once I got there, it was interesting 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:05.120 because even though they were religious themselves, they realized that 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:08.960 they had taught us. They had given us a sense 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:12.400 of Jewish culture, and now we had a choice. And 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:17.000 I think once I got to high school, I would 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:20.240 go do things on Saturday at football games and things 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:23.960 like that, and Temple was kind of to meek boys. 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:29.240 So I had already started, I think, at an early age, 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:31.880 kind of looking questioning. 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:33.679 And oddly enough, I. 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.959 Think the what I took away from the Yeshiva for 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.720 my early age was this idea of questioning, because we 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:45.280 had this very intense sort of Hebrew Talmudik studies and 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:50.800 that kind of thought, that kind of argumentative and deep 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:53.679 thinking about things like that, that fascinated me. 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:01.160 For college, Mammy goes to George Washington University, close enough 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:03.560 to home to be an acceptable choice to her parents 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.840 and far enough away that she can reinvent herself tell 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:10.760 a new story in which she's free of the burden 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.120 of keeping a secret. In fact, she can just get 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:17.559 rid of the secret entirely by telling a new story, 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:20.319 one in which she doesn't have a mentally ill brother, 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:22.959 in which she doesn't have a brother at all. 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:27.680 I could hide him completely. And so when any new 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:30.000 friends asked me, well, how many siblings did you have? 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:31.040 I would say one. 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.280 What did that feel like? Was it fine? Did you 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:35.800 feel guilty? 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:39.640 I didn't feel guilty about it, because I had been 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.760 trained to not talk about him, I had been trained 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:46.400 to hide him. I guess I was a very good learner, 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.040 I would have to say, looking back, because I had 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:55.680 really embodied that to hide what wasn't normal, and that's 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:58.440 exactly what I did. And so no, it's a very 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:02.480 interesting question. I'd have to say. From an early age, 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:08.000 I knew how to compartmentalize. In my junior year, I 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:11.120 had this itching to travel. The first two summers I 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.800 had come home and worked in New York City. Then 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.480 after my sophomore year in college, I told my parents 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:22.560 that I wanted to do it semester abroad, and I 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.680 went to London, and then from London, we took a 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:29.280 weekend and flew to Paris, and it was just very 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.680 exciting to be in another country. So my travel bug 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:37.360 was really growing. And when I came back from London 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:42.640 after Christmas time for a second semester, I wanted to 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.439 go away again. And I knew that my parents would 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:48.800 really want me to go to Israel. And I wanted 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:50.960 to go to Israel because we thought of Israel at 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.800 that time as a socialist, very progressive country. I knew 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:58.880 about the kibbutz. It was the sixties, and a kibbutz 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.240 seemed like a very immunal and exciting kind of life 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:06.640 because both genders worked. I like the idea of it, 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:08.800 and so my parents agreed to send me. 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:12.280 And they, of course the reason that they agreed. 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.120 Was because they thought going to Israel would bring me 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.120 back into the Jewish fault. I knew it wouldn't do that. 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:22.400 I was seeing it as a new travel location, but 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:24.000 nonetheless I did want to go there. 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:46.439 We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:51.920 It's nineteen seventy. Mimy is twenty living on a kibbutz 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:55.800 in Israel, surrounded by young travelers from all over the world. 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.360 She hitchhikes across the country, takes a side trip to 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.640 Greece and roads, and tastes a kind of freedom she's 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.880 never known before. When it's time to come home, she 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:07.439 almost misses her flight. 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:11.920 I'm ready to go home. 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:13.640 I'm wearing my green mini dress. 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.040 I'm the last person to board the plane. Almost miss it. 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:21.120 Get put in first class. I'm thrilled and I've had 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.720 a great summer, and now I'm anxious to get home 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.560 and anxious to get back to my senior year in college. 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:32.960 And after a couple of hours of flying, we stopped 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:38.080 in Frankfurt for refueling, and as we flew over Brussels 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:42.320 a few minutes twenty minutes later, the pilot said, eight 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.440 hours to New York. And then just then a man 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.680 and woman came running down the aisle and somebody screamed, 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:51.880 he has a gun, she has a grenade. 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:53.400 And by that time I. 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:55.720 Was in economy class, and I was sitting on an 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.440 aisle seat, so I could see them. I had no 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:00.680 idea where they were going or what they were doing. 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:05.200 And they kicked the door of the cockpit, and the 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.160 pilot opened the door, and they rushed themselves in there, 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:12.200 and they made an announcement shortly afterwards that this was 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:16.040 the popular front for the liberation of Palestine and we 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.120 shouldn't be afraid. They were taking us to a friendly country. 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:24.440 And just then we felt the plane turn in the air, 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:29.480 so much so that the bags that were under people's 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.840 seats just kind of flew into the aisle, and we 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.240 didn't know where we were going. I had no idea 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:38.320 what was going on. In nineteen seventy, this kind of 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:44.280 hijacking from a plane like this wasn't happening. There had 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:48.800 been hijackings before, but mostly from Miami to Cuba, and 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.480 those were for money. They wanted to ransom money or 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.800 something like that. So in the beginning I thought, Oh, 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:58.200 this is just going to be like a big inconvenience. 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:01.920 I'm going to get that to New York late, and 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:06.520 that's just going to ruin my plans and sounds so 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:08.200 stupid today now. 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:09.280 I would say though, that. 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:13.080 The older people, some of the very orthodox people on 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.680 the plane, the dual citizens duel is really American citizens 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:20.680 Holocaust survivors. Because this plane was coming from Tel Aviv, 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.920 they knew they were worried. So it wasn't just me. 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:26.960 I think there was a lot of young people on 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:29.760 board too. It was September sixth, so that was Leabre 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:33.200 Day weekend that year, and everyone big families were on 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:36.520 the plane, and so there were some people who understood, 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:40.080 but I wasn't one of them. And we flew for 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.640 another six hours and they got on the loudspeaker. Again. 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:48.240 We hadn't heard from them for all this time, and 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:52.400 then they said, we're taking you to a friendly country. 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.040 Jordan will be landing soon. This is you know, we 0:16:56.080 --> 0:17:02.240 will not harm you. So then the pilot was doing 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.399 a lot of circling, and my seat made Bob was 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:08.840 his name, looked out the window and he just said, 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:13.440 I don't see anything down there. There's no terminal, there's 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:17.760 no lights. It's just like desert. It was just like 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.040 the sunset when we were landing, so there was still 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:21.920 light enough to see. 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:23.240 He said, there's no runway. 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:27.480 There's some drums, like big drums with like torches in them. 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.760 And the pilot, i think, kept circling because he didn't 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:34.240 know if he could bring the plane down on the sand. 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:37.919 The pie deckers they had a gun with them and 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:41.560 the grenade, and they they were forcing him to bring 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:45.720 the plane down there. And the man who was sitting 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:48.959 at the window didn't speak English, and he had been 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:52.360 sleeping the whole time, and he suddenly woke up and 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:54.280 he turned to us and he said New York. 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:55.800 Because he felt the plane. 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:58.920 Sort of stop, and he just laughed. It was very 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.280 good to have a moment laughter amidst this. And it 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:06.880 wasn't until that moment when I looked out the window 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:11.000 and I saw what was there, and what was there 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.680 was a group of very very I know, one hundred 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:20.680 men in takis with guns over their shoulder. That's when 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:24.920 I thought, Oh, what is this and what's going to 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:29.879 happen next? That was when it began to sink in 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:32.080 so slowly for me. 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:39.879 You also you describe a truly terrifying moment in which 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:45.680 this was not the only jet that was hijacked, and 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:51.600 a second jet is landing and comes very very close 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:55.240 to hitting the jet that you all are on. Yes, 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:57.879 it felt to me like that was the first moment 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:04.160 of terror, like visceral, Oh, we could have died, and 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:06.920 also now there's this other jet, like wtf. 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:11.679 I couldn't actually see that close. I was on the 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:15.000 other side of the plane, and so I heard everyone 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:18.040 talking and like screaming, and I sort of turned and 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:23.560 I began to realize that this was a lot more serious. 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:29.800 What really, I think took me into reality was slightly 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:32.880 after that the second plane landed, when somebody came on 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:36.960 the plane, a woman without a gun speak in English, 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:40.360 and she explained again that they were from the Popular 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.360 Front for the Liberation of Palestine and that they were 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.800 going to hand out landing cards, which seemed kind of normal, 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:52.959 and they would be collecting them and our passports. And 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:56.080 in a short time they handed out the cards, and 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.359 then the couple across the aisle from me, who were 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:04.399 ultra her box. She took out four passports, two for 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:07.640 her and two for her for her husband. One was American, 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.600 one was Israeli. Then she took out the nail clippers 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:13.760 and she and her husband began to clip the pages 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:17.639 of the Israeli passport up. They stuffed the little pieces 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:21.600 into a throw up bag that they had on planes 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.560 then and shoved it in between the seats, But the 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:30.920 pictures and the identification page they swallowed. And that's when 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.720 I turned to my seat mate Bob again and whispered, 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:38.040 did you see that? Why did they do that? And 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:42.399 he explained to me, also whispering that if they found 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:46.399 out that they were also Israelis, we don't know what 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:49.400 would happened to them. We didn't know that at the time, 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:53.600 but now I know that they actually hijacked four planes 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.439 at the same time, all flying over Europe. Two of 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:01.560 them came to where we were, the which is called 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:05.560 Dawson's Field, a very remote area of Jordan, middle of 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:09.359 the desert. And then the other planes. One was an 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:13.160 l All plane and they already had marshalls air marshals 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:16.480 there and one of the hijackers was killed on the 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:18.879 plane and the other one was taken in custody when 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:23.080 they landed in London, and another plane was redirected to Cairo, 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:28.600 and they told the pilots that the plane would blow up, 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:30.800 and so they just had enough time. As soon as 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:34.760 they landed in Cairo, the people were able to evacuate 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:38.120 through the shoots just moments before the plane was blown up. 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:41.400 During the week that we were there, on the third day, 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:46.280 they hijacked a third plane. And they did that because 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:49.960 the demands that they had, which were for the release 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:55.000 of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and in jails in Europe, 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:59.240 they had targeted those countries where they were holding their prisoners. 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:03.480 They wired the planes that we were sitting on and 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:07.680 they brought the third plane down because their demands had 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:12.040 not been met by foreign countries, particularly by the United States. 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:15.520 They wanted us to put the pressure on Israel to 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:18.360 release these people who were in their veils. And when 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:22.040 that didn't happen. They threatened to blow us up inside 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.600 the plane, and they also hijacked the third plane. 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:32.720 Were you age twenty aware of the fact that the 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:35.240 plane was wired at that point. 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:38.440 Yes, because there were people on the plane who had 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:42.760 been in the army, the Americans, and they could see 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:46.120 what they were doing, and occasionally we were taken off 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:49.399 the plane so they could go through the plane and 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:52.479 see what was there. And that's why I was kepped 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:55.640 for much longer than most other people, because when they 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:58.919 went through the overhead bins, they found a lot of 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:01.480 things to incriminate people. And one of the things they 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:05.000 found for me was an Israeli army shirt that had 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:07.200 been given to me as a going wig present from 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:10.760 a friend who had just gotten out of the army. 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:12.680 You know, we had no idea they'd been going through 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:15.720 our luggage. Then they took us off one day and 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:18.320 they went through the other things that were in our 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:21.800 actual lub ic checked in luggage. So they took the things, 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:24.600 many things, and found many things, and it was based 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:27.960 on math that they decided who they should keep. 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:32.720 And you were very much somebody that they decided that 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:33.600 they wanted to keep. 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:39.760 I was, and they interiorated me twice at gunpoint, as 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:42.240 well as a few other young people who they decided 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:46.560 to keep because of also incriminating evidence. They had things 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:47.560 from Israel. 0:23:47.720 --> 0:23:51.320 So they decided that you were Israeli, that you were 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:55.000 an Israeli citizen, and also that you had been in 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:59.160 the army. Yes, and then later that you were married 0:23:59.280 --> 0:24:02.280 to an Israeli social and you were both in the army. 0:24:02.560 --> 0:24:02.760 Yes. 0:24:02.840 --> 0:24:06.040 That was the second interrogation, after I denied everything during 0:24:06.080 --> 0:24:09.640 the first interrogation, but was so scared, I mean, being 0:24:09.920 --> 0:24:12.919 interrogated at gunpoint. The only thing I could think was, well, 0:24:12.960 --> 0:24:15.960 they haven't killed anybody yet, so maybe they won't kill me. 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:19.320 And then the second interrogation, which was a day or 0:24:19.359 --> 0:24:23.920 two later, that's when they started asking me about my husband, 0:24:24.280 --> 0:24:26.320 Where was I Where did we fight in the West 0:24:26.400 --> 0:24:29.520 Bank and our Goalen Heights, And they started asking me 0:24:29.560 --> 0:24:30.920 these very specific questions. 0:24:31.000 --> 0:24:31.920 I was like, no, no. 0:24:32.520 --> 0:24:38.040 They viewed me as something I was absolutely not. I 0:24:38.320 --> 0:24:43.280 was a twenty year old myself, anti imperialist, anti Vietnam 0:24:43.320 --> 0:24:47.240 War protester against the American government, and yet to them 0:24:47.280 --> 0:24:50.760 I was a representative not only as an Israeli soldier 0:24:51.000 --> 0:24:54.760 but also an American. They thought I was Israeli but 0:24:54.800 --> 0:25:01.720 also American, so myself very othered. There was no way 0:25:01.800 --> 0:25:05.000 that they could understand when I was saying or really listen. 0:25:05.359 --> 0:25:06.639 You couldn't listen to me. 0:25:09.280 --> 0:25:13.879 How did you keep yourself remotely in one piece during 0:25:14.840 --> 0:25:17.840 that period of time this went on ultimately for you 0:25:18.040 --> 0:25:19.280 for twenty one days. 0:25:19.880 --> 0:25:23.840