Fadwa Tawfiq Abu Atta, aged 93 from Beit Jala discussing the Ottoman period and World War I

Fadwa Tawfiq Abu Atta (93 years old, born 1907 from Beit Jala) interviewed by Niveen Jabrieh on 22 March 2000. She discusses the following: military conscription during World War I and the injustice of Ottoman rule; people either had to pay or marry a foreign woman to avoid conscription; the Ottoman army used to leer at women and rape them; talks about marriage traditions – how the wedding festival lasted for 10 days; education was simple consisting of just reading and writing; people emigrated because of poverty and conscription; discusses transportation; women of Bethlehem used to dress up; the spread of disease. Original audio recording: cassette tape. Transcript: summary. In the original collection at Bethlehem University this cassette tape was categorised as File 1 of Box 11. 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.