Testimony of Shaoul Hakham Sassoon Khedourie

Shaoul Hakham Sassoon Khedourie, who died almost a year ago aged 97, recorded in 2003 a moving testimony to his imprisonment and torture by Saddam 30 years previously. Scroll down to see the video here(With thanks: Lily)

The son of the last Chief Rabbi of Iraq, Khedourie was dismissed from his job for being a Jew and suffered many indignities during the year he spent in the notorious Terminal Palace in Baghdad. On several occasions he tried to end his own life. He also witnessed the suffering of other inmates. Abdul Rahman al-Bazzaz, a former Prime Minister of Iraq, had his tongue burnt.

Khedourie's video is one of six testimonies to the atrocities of the Saddam era recorded on a DVD made by the Iraqi Memory Foundation. The Foundation both in Baghdad and Washington is 'engaged in a long-term effort to provide Iraqi society and the world with a view of the inner workings of the Ba'thist institutions or repression and social control that dominated all aspects of Iraqi life from 1968 to 2003.' The Foundation is preserving, digitizing, classifying and beginning to analyse more than 11 million pages of records in its holdings.
Contact the Iraq Memory Foundation at 1701 K Street, N.W.Suite 550, Washington, DC, 20006. Phone: +1 202 293 5910. Fax: +1 202 293 5911.