by Mary Nicholson

Saffuriya village, 1931

We were taken to an Palestinian village called Saffuriya, demolished in 1948. It is now a wooded hillside (see photos). It was a large village before being completely wiped out, the size of a large town.

Saffuriya, Spring 2015

It is almost unimaginable nature has managed to erase away all trace of the community, after it was destroyed by the Israeli army.

The solitary building on the photo is now a museum. There is an inscription which says ‘this building was used as a village school during the Ottoman period’ has completely missed out the fact that the Palestinians children were educated here.

It has come to my mind that human memory can be so easily redacted out.

— Mary Nicholson