Orna Baziz, a survivor of the Agadir earthquake of 1960, has just published her book “Earthquake of Agadir, story of a survivor 1960-2020”, published by La Croisée des paths.
In this 385-page testimony book, Orna Baziz recounts, sixty years later, the history of the city of Agadir and reviews the testimonies of survivors who survived the 1960 earthquake.
Introducing the book, she underlines the importance of “commemorating in the most respectful way possible the memory of the victims of this disaster that nobody had noticed until now”.
In the first part, the writer introduces her story as well as that of the disaster in the city of Agadir through a conversation with her first granddaughter, curious about her grandmother’s past.
“A superfluous night, that of February 29, 1960, the third night of Ramadan, the eve of Shrove Tuesday, new moon of the month of Adar! The city in which the sun shone 365 days a year died out on the 366th of 1960: at 11:40:14 p.m. the earth shook at 6.7 on the Richter scale. Twelve seconds were enough to wipe out an entire city and swallow up a large part of its inhabitants, ”she recalls.
And to add: “All over the world we talk about living well in Agadir. City facing the great challenge of reconstruction and rebirth, city hatched in the midst of its ashes, city blessed by God, city cursed by God. Agadir, city of my dreams and city of my nightmares ”.
In the second part of the book, collecting several testimonies, Orna Baziz sought to verify in other survivors the impact of this traumatic experience. This book allows the reader to know the different stories of the survivors through not only their testimonies but also several photos dating from 1960 to 2020 present throughout the book.
Born Régine Riboh in Agadir, Orna Baziz, mother of four children, she currently lives in Jerusalem where she taught Hebrew at the Academy of Letters. Author of numerous articles in literature, cultures and civilizations, she publishes several books including “Hagadat Agadir, story of a broken city”, her first work in Hebrew on the disaster of 1960 in Agadir.