Iran is in turmoil in November 1979. Barry Rosen hears at his workplace in the US embassy how the radio begins to flood with charming talk.
The speaker is Iran’s top religious leader Ruhollah Khomeiniwho has returned from exile.
An Islamic revolution is raging in Iran. The pro-Western shah has been deposed, and Iran is turning into a hard-line clerical state. The Ayatollah encourages people to break into foreign targets, including the US embassy.
Barry Rosen is a family man in his forties from Brooklyn, New York. As the head of the embassy’s press department, he helpfully knows Farsi. Rosen understands that they are being talked about on the radio.
At ten in the morning, a group of armed students invades the embassy. The men blindfold Rosen and take him to the kitchen of the ambassador’s official residence.
– I understood that the imprisonment was going to be very long, Rosen tells in a video interview from his home in New York.
For Rosen, his own prison time comes to mind now that a year has passed since the extremist organization Hamas’s large-scale attack on Israel. Hamas still holds hostages.
Next month will be 45 years since the start of the Iranian hostage crisis.
Gunmen took 66 prisoners at the US Embassy. A few of them were released, but Barry Rosen and 51 others were captured by the fanatic AAA group, which supports Ayatollah Khomeini.
Over the next 444 days, Rosen believed he was going to die many times.
Confession of espionage with a gun on the temple
The kidnapping began an almost continuous period of darkness that lasted for weeks. The captors claimed Rosen as a spy.
– “Reveal who else is part of the network”, Rosen describes the kidnappers’ demands.
The threat requirement was enhanced by pressing the gun to the temple.
Rosen was pressured to sign a confession of espionage and conspiracy against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Rosen agreed and thought he would die immediately.
The accusations against Rosen were particularly heavy because he knew Farsi and was in an influential position in the mission.
The bird signaled freedom
The Iranian media initially presented the prisoners as war booty.
Barry Rosen was transported blindfolded to several different addresses after the initial stage in Tehran. The longest time was spent in the large prison in Evin.
It was unbearably hot in Evin’s cell in the summer. Breaking the window brought a breeze of fresh, if hot, air between the bars. In winter, the prisoners had cabins. They had no overcoats, only the clothes they were wearing at the time of the abduction.
There were four prisoners in the cell, but talking was forbidden at first. The prisoners walked a few meters back and forth, endlessly. Red ants also walked endlessly on the floor of the cell. Following them was the only pastime.
– The shadow of a bird fell on the ceiling of the cell, something colorful with wings circled in front of the prison. I drew the bird’s shadow and made cartoons out of it. It was my friend in solitude.
From the rotation of the sun and the change in temperature, it was possible to conclude that another inconsolable day had dawned. The sense of time was preserved somehow with the help of the log man’s accounting.
At the same time, the President Jimmy Carter’s the administration made efforts to get Iran to hand over the hostages.
Thinking of loved ones helped
After the first months, the prisoners could receive letters in which family members could tell some things about their own lives.
Rosen tried to keep her sanity by exercising and thinking about her three-year-old son at the time Alexanderher newborn daughter Ariana and his spouse Barbara.
– I would have given up hope if I didn’t have them. I wanted to live for them, says Rosen.
Not all had the same power sources. On the faces of some of his fellow inmates, Rosen saw surrender.
– We talked about these things, we were careful not to unleash pain. We talked about our family and friends, but not about our own feelings.
Some of the prisoners refused to eat. Barry Rosen ate and begged others to eat too. There was rice, beans and lukewarm vegetable soups. Rosen lost tens of kilos.
The prisoners’ biggest wish was for the cargo’s privacy, but they didn’t get it. There were also cameras in the toilet.
Out to freedom for 20 minutes
Rosen’s imprisonment continued as the year changed and the 1980s began. The Soviet Union fought a war in Afghanistan, China’s population exceeded one billion. In Iran, the parliament debated the release of the hostages.
Rosen and his fellow-destined knew nothing of all this.
Rosen says that he is torn by conflicting emotions: on the one hand love for Iranian culture, on the other hand frustration and anger. He tried to prevent a mental breakdown by following routines: washing his shirt, which had turned from white to dark gray, reading books that had been brought with him from the embassy for some reason.
Months passed. Through the shore, the prisoners learned that they were not to be killed. That was what the priestly administration had ordered. However, that did not stop the guards from humiliating and abusing the prisoners.
According to Rosen, a shocking moment came in the summer of 1980. The group was let out into the prison yard for 20 minutes.
Rosen describes how he grabbed grass in his pockets, smelled the grass, looked at the sky and absorbed the shades of green, blue and white.
– Those were the freest 20 minutes of my life.
“They spat on us goodbye”
The year had time to change again. In the United States, the president had been elected Ronald Reagan.
On January 20, 1981, the prisoners were taken blindfolded to a bus. The destination was not a new dungeon, but an Algerian Airlines plane. It rolled off the runway when Reagan was sworn into office in the United States.
Rosen’s feeling was unreal.
– We boarded the plane in line. There were Iranian students on both sides. Bye bye they spat on us. I only dared to taste the champagne on offer after the plane had left Iranian airspace, says Rosen.
“I carry hostages in my DNA”
Barry Rosen is now 80 years old. He has dedicated his life to human rights work and helping the Iranian opposition.
Rosen thinks that the background of his release was the change in the international situation and the president Jimmy Carter’s and the following one Ronald Reagan diplomatic efforts.
The negotiations were smoothed over by the US administration’s eventual payment of eight billion dollars to Iran. They were reportedly frozen assets of Iran. Iran needed money for the war against Iraq.
Even today, hostages are constantly being taken in conflicts around the world. In Rosen’s opinion, kidnappers should always be held accountable for their actions.
– Depriving an innocent person of their freedom is a serious violation of human rights, Rosen emphasizes.
Rosen has also met family members of Israeli prisoners taken by the Hamas organization a year ago, when they visited the United States.
– I know something about what they are going through, Rosen says.
According to him, hostage-taking does not end with release, but after that comes memories, flashbacks and nightmares.
– I carry hostage in my DNA. It’s always in me.
Listen to Barry Rosen’s interview with the program World Politics Everyday, which also talks about the Israelis kidnapped by Hamas: