The interviewer collected his father’s testimony, from when he was the same age as his son, 15.

The father talks at first about how his school had to close its doors and he used to study thanks to TV: when the war started, the classes stopped. The father, who was in high school was able to go on studying thanks to TV. “We could follow classes on TV”.

The family owned an apartment in Beirut, but in an area that was quite exposed, and their daily life was different compared to others who live in areas that were removed from the demarcation lines: the apartment, located in Ashrafieh, was very close to the ‘hot line’. It was exposed on a daily basis, to the bombings and gunfire. “Every night, I would hear them. On the radio, they would say that the situation was calm, and that there were only a few skirmishes on the frontline… but these skirmishes were home to me… two steps away from my bed where I was trying to get some sleep.”

Taking shelter during bombings was a matter of chance and delusionary: At home, the safest place to hide was the hallway across the bathroom. “We had to stay there because there were two walls, and not even two walls; because there were the toilets too […] we thought it was the safest place.” When the fighting became more intense, the family would move towards other safer areas, such as Ghosta, Faraya and Jounieh. But they were far, “and we couldn’t take those roads everyday… and the apartment in Beirut was centrally located.”

Because of the fact that the interviewee spent most of his time moving back and forth within the same area, he never really experienced the checkpoints, demarcation lines and shortages, until the end of the war, when the two sides of the same camp turned against each other. During that “war”, he had to cross demarcation lines but not the “major demarcation line of Beirut-East-West… but the demarcation lines that came into being afterwards; those, we often had to cross.” During these clashes, there was a shortage of food and the family ate “whatever was available at home… I remember that the last war that was fought between the Army and the Lebanese Forces, we had to go by without meat and vegetables. Nothing was available. Everything was closed. And when Aoun decided to do the Liberation war, we became besieged, we couldn’t access anything, everything closed down… we only ate whatever we had at home,” says the father.

But to him, the priority at the time wasn’t a matter of eating, but of survival: he remembers accompanying his ill mother, in the ambulance, and going from “hospital to hospital, from demarcation line to demarcation line.” During these events, all communication was ensured by the Red Cross. The phone lines were dead. The interviewee had several friends working at the Red Cross. The volunteers were present in all regions and used cordless phones. They also acted as intermediaries between people.

During the war, life had a particular taste, intense. “Because we were conscious that every day, we escaped death.” But this intensity does not shield against from the traumas, and does not help in the country and its people’s evolution, he adds. The father mentions his friends who were killed, those who migrated, those who became addicted to drugs and those who have become psychologically ill. He notes that the war has changed the sense of morality and ethics. “There is no longer any sense of ethics, because of the war. […] People think that they’re allowed to do anything they wish… and that is simply not… permissible.” He admits that the war has borne an impact on him, and wishes that “no one lives through this experience again.” His conclusion is that “violence does not settle conflicts.”