Syria’s Secret Library

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Away from the sound of bombs and bullets, in the basement of a crumbling house in the besieged Syrian town of Darayya, is a secret library. It’s home to thousands of books rescued from bombed-out buildings by local volunteers, who daily brave snipers and shells to fill it’s shelves. In a town gripped by hunger and death after three years without food aid, Mike Thomson reveals how this literary sanctuary is proving a lifeline to a community shattered by war.

Produced by Michael Gallagher and translated by Mariam El Khalaf.

*Omar, the FSA soldier who was the last voice heard in this programme has been killed in fighting*

(Photo: Omar Abu Anas, a Free Syrian Army soldier reads on the front line)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for downloading this edition of assignment. I'm Mike Thompson. A few months ago I began
0:05.7	researching a news report on Syrian towns besieged by the forces of President Assad, and I came across this remarkable tale, Syria's secret library.
0:19.0	This is assignment on the BBC World Service.
0:36.0	Out of sight in a heavily bombed Damascus suburb with a crack of sniper's bullets echoed through the streets a doorway leads down into another world. When you first walk in there's a narrow hallway you turn right, walk on and then you go through a door and all the way down the stairs.
0:50.0	Then on your left you'll find suffers and tables. On your right are all the different
0:58.7	sections of books. Everything from science, literature to social sciences and everything.
1:05.0	Derea on the fringe of Damascus is besieged by the Syrian army and it's been that way
1:15.7	for almost four years. During that time the town's received only two aid convoys and is bombed and shelled almost daily.
1:27.1	I'm Mike Thompson and for this week's assignment residents of Durea tell us an extraordinary story.
1:35.0	About a secret repository of peace, learning and hope amid the terror.
1:41.0	A makeshift library housed in a basement room deep beneath the rubble.
1:47.0	I try to memorize everyone.
1:55.0	There was so many good books that I kept skipping from one to another.
1:59.0	Then I said to the men in charge,
2:01.0	I want to stay here.
2:03.0	14 year old Amjad lives with his family beneath a bombed building next door to the secret library.
2:11.0	He only knew it existed after being told to take shelter there during some shelling.
2:17.0	It was a real surprise.
2:20.0	When I first walked into the library it was really exciting.
2:23.7	There was so many books, some on top shelves that I couldn't reach.
2:28.2	This library is very important for my education.
2:32.4	For example, my reading's... This library is very important for my education.
	...

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