The 372nd Night of Memoires– Part 2

Compiled by Iran Oral History Website
Translated by Fazel Shirzad

2025-12-9

Note: At the end of September, coinciding with Sacred Defense Week, the 372nd Night of Memories was held on September 25, 2025, in the Sooreh Hall of Arts Center. The host opened the program with a warm welcome, reminding the audience that for more than thirty-three years, this gathering has kept the flame of remembrance of the warriors and martyrs alive at the beginning of every month. In this session, Haj Hossein Sadeghi Siroo’i, Hassan Naji-Rad, and Seyed Morteza Azarhoushang shared their memories. Also, on the sidelines of the ceremony, the book Hossein Garda’i, written by Mohammad-Hadi Zargari, was unveiled. The evening’s program was hosted by Davood Salehi.

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The host introduced the second narrator as follows: Haj Hassan Naji-Rad was born in April 1964 in the religious city of Borujerd—a city whose religious and family environment shaped the life path of many teenagers of that era. He too grew up in a religious family: a family in which one of his uncles was a cleric, undoubtedly influencing the formation of his religious and revolutionary worldview.

In the years before the peak of the Revolution, Borujerd welcomed clerics who spoke boldly and openly against the Pahlavi regime. One prominent figure of that time was Haj Agha Dibaji, a militant cleric who held nightly sessions to enlighten the people. One night, after a speech concluded, a violent clash erupted between the people and government forces, resulting in the martyrdom of one person.

This incident marked a turning point for the sensitive young teenager—it was like a spark that pushed his mind toward active participation in revolutionary movements. Taking part in demonstrations, rallies, and public events soon turned him into a revolutionary youth. When the imposed war began, his eagerness to join the front intensified. But due to his young age, he was not allowed to be deployed, and like many of his peers, he began altering his birth certificate. Sometime later, the news of the martyrdom of one of his uncles shocked him deeply and became an even stronger motivation to go to the frontline.

He traveled south to learn more about the circumstances of his uncle’s martyrdom and to visit another relative who was serving in the army. This journey eventually brought him into an operational environment. Finally, in May 1982, he was captured in one of the clashes—an imprisonment that lasted more than eight years until he returned home with the first group of one thousand released POWs. Today he is retired from the IRGC, but he continues to engage in jihad-oriented service, working with a group of friends in deprived regions of Sistan and Baluchestan.

The narrator began his talk by remembering the martyrs, with the belief that the captivity of Iranian POWs is a part of the Sacred Defense narrative that has often been neglected, even though its role in explaining resistance is no less significant than martyrdom or injury. He said:

“Our entry into captivity was marked by total isolation. They took us to Camp Mosul-1—one of four camps near the city of Mosul. The Iraqis did everything they could to keep us completely cut off from the outside world. About three months had passed since my captivity, and nearly a month had gone by since the liberation of Khorramshahr, yet we had no information at all.”

Entering the camp had its own story. It was the Iraqis’ habit to create a “tunnel of horror” when new prisoners arrived. They would stand on both sides and beat the prisoners with anything they could find—cables, sticks, rifle butts, shovels, pickaxes, and more. They beat so savagely that when they were done, they would turn to each other and say “Taqabbal-Allah” (“May God accept it”)! Among the guards was someone named “Mohammad,” whom they had nicknamed “the photographer.” This wretched man, whenever he wanted to slap a POW, would prepare the prisoner’s face for a few minutes, distract him, and then suddenly strike with his heavy hand.

The narrator continued: “In that suffocating atmosphere of isolation, even the Iraqi newspapers they brought were unreliable. The Iraqis had appointed Mr. Jamshid Narimani as the prisoners’ representative and liaison. They were also desperately searching for infiltrators and spies among us, especially targeting the younger ones like me to extract information.

“This sparked an idea among us. We formed a group of ten and asked Mr. Narimani to let us volunteer for cleaning the Iraqi compound. Our goal was to find a way to gather information. One day, while we were cleaning with buckets and brooms, I managed to enter the camp commander’s room. On his desk was a two-band radio. We were tempted to take it right then, but when we told Mr. Narimani, he strongly objected, saying: ‘Don’t do it; it will bring disaster on us.’

“Two days later, we went back for cleaning. This time the radio wasn’t in the commander’s room. I looked around and found it in the soldiers’ rest area. That same ‘Mohammad the photographer’ was lying on a bunk watching TV, and the radio was on top of the set. We devised a plan. One of our friends brought a bucket of water and suddenly spilled it all over the floor! Mohammad got up angrily and yelled, ‘What are you doing?’ We said, ‘It’s dirty; we need to mop it. Step outside for a moment.’ As soon as he stepped out, we took the radio and smuggled it into the camp.”

When Mr. Narimani saw the radio, he became worried that the Iraqis would come and search everything, but despite their young age, the boys reassured him: “Don’t worry—they won’t dare.” And, as the Qur’an says, “It was not you who threw when you threw, but God threw.”

“We hid the radio in the washrooms, removed the batteries, wrapped them in plastic, and buried them under the camp floor. Strangely enough, the Iraqis neither looked for the radio nor came after us.

“The radio stayed there until Eid al-Fitr 1982. That day, we dug it out and managed to tune in to Imam Khomeini’s speech, write it down, and distribute it in the camp. Of course, to confuse the guards, we mixed the real news with seven or eight false items—the equivalent of today’s ‘fake news.’”

The narrator continued: “Sometime later, the Iraqis brought about 100 people who had committed crimes in Iran—such as bombings—and wanted to register them with the Red Cross as POWs. All of them had radios. The Iraqis gathered them in one ward, placed a blanket in the middle, and ordered everyone to throw their radios onto it. During this process, we communicated with one of them through the window. I asked, ‘Do you have one?’ He showed a small orange radio and said, ‘You mean this?’ I said, ‘Yes—place it quietly behind the window ledge.’ A few of our guys distracted the guard, and we took the radio. Now we had two.

“To transcribe the news, we would send one of the guys—Hussein Fathi—into the bathhouse with a bucket of water to pretend he was bathing. Water was rationed in the camp and extremely muddy; we purified it with great difficulty. One day, a nosy prisoner who was suspicious that Hussein wasn’t coming out wet peeked over the bathhouse wall. Our friend panicked, knocked over the bucket, and our orange radio fell into the water, ruining its speaker.

“For a while we had no speaker. Then Mr. Ghodrat Hezabeh performed a miracle. When the Iraqi supply truck entered the camp, the driver got out. Ghodrat climbed in from the other side, grabbed the radio on the dashboard, and disappeared into the crowd. The Iraqi driver was too afraid to report it. That third radio was broken, but its speaker worked. I had some technical skills, so I removed the speaker and installed it on our orange radio. We had our radio back.”

The narrator continued: “Now we had to hide them. The Iraqis knew a radio was inside the camp, and during inspections, they would ruin our belongings. They mixed sugar, salt, and powdered milk so we couldn’t use any of it. In the entire 2,000-prisoner camp, maybe only three or four people knew who held the radios. I wore a loose shirt with two hidden pockets sewn under the arms. I kept the radios there. I was very thin, so no one suspected anything.

“One day, I had gone from our ward (Ward 6) to Ward 1 to visit friends. Suddenly the Iraqis stormed in like madmen—seven or eight soldiers along with a large, heavy-built officer named ‘Moqdad.’ They shouted for everyone to stay still, then ordered us to stand and walk toward the door, where several soldiers were waiting to conduct body searches.

“I stood up with two radios under my arms—radios that, in captivity, were as dangerous as nuclear bombs. As I walked toward the door, I began reciting the verse ‘and we placed before them a barrier and behind them a barrier…’ When I reached the door, Moqdad saw me. He knew I was from Ward 6. He asked, ‘What are you doing here?’ I said, ‘Just visiting.’

“It was my turn to be searched. My heart was pounding. But suddenly Moqdad turned to his soldiers and said: ‘Let him go—don’t search him.’

“Believe me, this was nothing but God’s grace. Throughout my captivity, I was responsible for hiding prohibited items—from photos of Imam Khomeini, the Leader, and Martyr Beheshti to special bulletins we made for the anniversary of the Revolution using forbidden pens and paper. When I was captured, I had nothing; by the end of captivity, by God’s grace, I had preserved 200 pens, a lot of paper, two radios, and photos of great figures. If even one had been discovered, the entire camp would have suffered—but God was always with us.”

To be continued...