By
Hassan Mahmoudi
"The Nazi hunters from Germany
were midway through a four-hour interview with Judith Meisel when they pulled
out a photo of a young S.S. guard the 88-year-old Holocaust survivor hadn't
seen for nearly 75 years."
The
Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on July 8, 2017:
In
a desperate, final dash to bring the guard and others to account for Nazi
atrocities committed decades ago, investigators from Germany's Federal Justice
Office, aided by FBI agents, visited Meisel's St. Louis Park, Minn., home last
month after once thinking that there were no more living survivors of Stutthof.
Founded by German authorities after an internet search, Meisel offers a rare
chance for prosecutors to present one more survivor's account of a brutal camp
in Poland where 60,000 died.
"I think it's important to send
the message that no matter how long ago these crimes were committed that
humanity will seek justice until it can no longer do so," said Gregory
Gordon, a former federal prosecutor who worked on cases involving Nazi war
criminals.
Although
history will never forget the lessons and memories of Holocaust, ironically,
history repeats itself with similar events.
The dates and the names of the players may change, but the general
motifs remain the same.
Zohreh
Heydari was a 17-year-old Iranian woman from the city of Qom (125 kilometers by
road southwest of Tehran). She was part
of the first group of people who were taken away during the massacre in the
summer of 1988, executing more than 30,000 people in Iran. She was sentenced in court to 70 lashes, and
the night prior to her execution, she received those 70 floggings.
The
massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in Iran was a crime against
humanity. Khomeini desired to get rid of
his main opponents and guarantee the survival of his regime. After three decades, there is a movement
seeking justice for that massacre and the other crimes conducted by the Iranian
regime.
Zohreh
Heydari is certainly an inspiration to all those women now continuing the
struggle against Iran's corrupt, misogynist mullahs. Her courage and bravery, her capacity to take
risks, and her strong willpower contributed to her mature appearance.
"She was arrested while trying to
escape the country," said her fellow inmate, "on her way to joining
the resistance. She underwent a
tremendous amount of torture and used to recount her memories from the period
of interrogation. She used to say, 'The
torture room seemed so small to me that upon my return to my cell it felt as if
I have stepped in to a hotel. I would take advantage of that space until it was
time to return for more torture the following day.'"
Zohreh
used to stand steadfast against the interrogators from the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps. Whenever the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRG) in Evin Prison would rush into our cells to
attack us, they would directly go to Zohreh and assault her, assuming she was
guilty and responsible for everything.
She
used to suffer from severe migraine headaches.
"They used to rush into our cells with their lashes, beating
everyone. Due to Zohreh's headache, she
had not partaken in our protest this time around. However, Halvaee, that evil executioner who
had a particular hate for Zohreh, directly approached Zohreh and started
kicking her with his heavy boots. Zohreh
started yelling, 'You malicious, dirty guard, leave me alone! Don't you get close to me!' It was exactly because of her continuous
persistence that we had nicknamed her 'Waterfall.' Her shouts were similar to the roar of the
waterfall as it continuously pounds upon falling."
Zohreh
and I were on a hunger strike together for a month in Gohardasht Prison. When we were transferred to solitary
confinements, our cells were near each other, so we were able to know how the
other was doing.
We
preoccupied ourselves by learning various languages and dialects such as Azeri,
Shomali, and Kurdish. Ever since those
days, the Azeri word "oushachlar," meaning "friends" or,
more colloquially, "guys," has become very popular and is still used
to this day. That's how we used to refer
to each other. And that's how the word
"waterfall" (Aabshar in Farsi, phonetically similar to Oushachlar in
Azeri) came to signify Zohreh.
Whenever
we were moved or transferred to different cells, Waterfall was the one in
charge of announcing wake-up calls and blackouts. In fact, her voice was so loud and clear, as
if it were coming through a speaker, reaching from one side of the hall to the
other. She was also in charge of
announcing daily prayers while in solitary confinement. Each morning, she would yell out, "Hey,
oushachlar [guys], good morning!"
At the time of prayers, she would call, "Oushachlar, it's time for
prayers. Let's pray together." And at the end of prayers, she'd say,
"May God accept our prayers, oushachlar." When they turned off the lights at nights,
Zohreh's loud and clear voice would break the silence in our cells by wishing
everyone a good night. All the guards
recognized Zohreh's voice and knew that Waterfall was her nickname. She was not afraid of anyone and would face
them all singlehandedly.
The
female guards were not capable of punishing or silencing her, hence they always
sent brutal male torturers. One day, as
dusk was falling, she called everyone to prayers. "Oushachlar, it's time for
prayers!" We all stood up in our
cells for prayers. Like the usual
routine, she called out, "May God accept your prayers" once we had
finished. She hadn't fully completed her
sentence when we heard her cell's door open, followed by the voices of three
men. We realized they had been waiting
to attack her after our prayers. On the
one hand, we could hear the beatings of those three heinous torturers, and on
the other hand, Zohreh's voice, shouting, "Get out of my cell, you evil
bastards! Don't you touch me!"
An
hour of this unjust but proud battle continued.
The rest of us who were in the surrounding cells started banging on our
doors and yelling to leave the poor girl alone.
We didn't know what had happened to Zohreh, as she had gone silent. The beatings had continued for more than an
hour. Only the voices of those three who
were taking out their revenge and hatred on her could be heard. They left her cell after a while, and
although we kept calling Zohreh, she didn't respond to any of us.
We
were all very sad and worried about her health.
A heavy silence fell upon our ward.
That night, we didn't hear Waterfall's voice calling out the usual
"Goodnight, oushachlar!" But
somebody else repeated the exact line on her behalf. We had no news of her state all night long.
Shortly
before dawn, at the time of prayer, our heroine once again, with her
waterfall-like roaring voice, stronger than ever, yelled out, "Time to
wake up, oushachlar! It's time to
pray." And it was Waterfall's voice
that ended our prayers with the usual "May God accept our prayers."
She
made our enemy understand that even with violence, torture, and brutality, they
cannot stop our roaring Waterfall from defending her rights against misogynist
mullahs.
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