The Final Curtain: Confessions of an Old Man

An old Chinese proverb teaches “The best place to find wisdom is at the feet of an old man.” I don’t proclaim to have wisdom, but at the age of 95, I have surely earned the title of “old man.” When I was younger, like any other young person, I thought life was never-ending. And if something went wrong, it would be to other people, not me. In the second half of 2025, I realized how wrong I was. I was hospitalized seven times and survived three major surgeries. My gratitude is to God, great doctors, the age of technology, the love and care of my wife, children, grandchildren and many true friends. I am still able to sit down and share my story of what my life has been all about.

Like every human being, I couldn’t choose my parents, my genes and the environment I grew up in. But what was in my power would be how I react to the circumstances that I would face. I was born in Taht Al Takia, a fairly poor Jewish neighborhood in the old city of Baghdad, in December of 1930. Sanitary conditions were poor to nonexistent, drinking water was tainted. Blessed with strong genes, I survived dysentery, stomach worms and trachoma, a blinding disease transmitted by flies, while four of my siblings did not survive. I had a happy childhood and was oblivious to the world around me in the 1930s. I believed Baghdad was my home and Iraq was my country.

On April 1, 1941, a pro-Nazi coup deposed the government of Iraq. A key advisor to the coup leaders, Haj Amin Al Husseini, a well-known antisemite, created an alliance with Nazi Germany and fostered an antisemitic extremist environment. Daily antisemitic articles appeared in the newspapers and Radio Baghdad, which greatly influenced the man on the street.

Two months later, as the British forces arrived at the outskirts of Baghdad, the coup leaders fled. Mobs, inspired by the pro-Nazi propaganda, led a violent pogrom, known as the Farhud. They entered Jewish homes and businesses, looting, murdering and gang-raping women and girls. There was no place to hide or escape. Fortunately, two days later, the British forces entered the city of Baghdad, shot at the mob, and stopped the mayhem. I was 10 years old and my world turned upside down.

All I wanted was to study hard and go to America for higher education. This dream collapsed in 1948 when I graduated from high school. After failing to destroy the new state of Israel, the Iraqi government turned against its Jewish population and refused to give me an exit visa to leave Iraq. There were arrests, torture and public hangings. A year and a half later, I found myself being smuggled out of Iraq to Iran and then to Israel, where I became a homeless, penniless refugee.

Six years later, I traveled to Montreal, Canada, hoping to continue my higher education. Because of harsh conditions and lack of funds, I dropped out of college due to the necessity to survive and support myself. My focus became a new dream. I would get married and have children who could become highly educated. I entered the world of real estate and started to sell single family homes. I suffered for nearly a year and a half, with only one meal a day, surviving on a $50 a week advance from the boss. Three years later I started my own real estate brokerage firm and the rest is history.

We moved to Santa Monica, California in 1978, where we still reside after 48 years. My dream was fulfilled. Two of my three children are Ph.D.s and one is an M.D.

You may wonder what keeps me going after all I have faced? At the age of 95, what still gives me meaning and purpose in life is to share my personal story, my broken dreams, my disappointments, my failures and how I faced unpredictable and uncontrollable events.  I cherish the opportunity to inspire others to keep their goals and dreams alive, to persist and to work hard, as I did, and most importantly to never give up.  At this point in my journey, my commitment and focus are on sharing the Holocaust events that not only took place in Europe, but also extended to the Arab lands, a story that needs to be more widely told.

Now that I face the final curtain, time is short, and there’s still a lot to do. After many years of writing, at the age of 90, I completed my memoir “Beyond the Rivers of Babylon,” and with the help of an Iraqi translator, published my book in Arabic in 2024. Working hard, and with the help of the younger generation, we created a PowerPoint presentation with photos, which I have presented to numerous high schools, colleges, the Holocaust Museum of Los Angeles, the Museum of Tolerance, and other organizations across the country.

The stories of the Jewish suffering in Arab lands during World War II and beyond needs to be kept alive. If I can change one young person’s mind, I feel I’ll have accomplished my mission. I am truly grateful for every day in my remaining life to share our rarely told, rarely known story.

Joseph Samuels is a survivor of the 1941 Farhud pogrom in Baghdad and author of the memoir, “Beyond the Rivers of Babylon: My Journey of Optimism and Resilience in a Turbulent Century.”