The Household Archives Keeping the South’s Memory Alive: An Interview With Adeeb Farhat

What first drew you to archiving? 

I was still a child when I first became curious about collecting items related to southern Lebanon and the Israeli occupation we lived under. The day the occupation ended, everyone rushed to get rid of anything connected to it. They dismantled the military posts that used to shell our towns and villages. In 2000, the resistance blew up an Israeli post in the village of al-Suwaidah [on al-Suwaidah Hill, Nabatieh] that used to shell our village of Arabsalim. The site was bulldozed just a few years later — completely erased, like it never existed.

People got rid of the shrapnel and shells that struck their homes, objects left behind by the Israeli army, and even the objects left behind by resistance fighters — either because they didn’t understand their value or didn’t want the reminder. After 18 years of occupation, some people preferred to close that chapter; to forget it. Others didn’t recognize the value of these records for collective memory. So when these materials started disappearing, it didn’t sit right with me. I started collecting any shrapnel and bullet casings I found. The more curious I got, the bigger my collection grew. People began to offer me their magazines and newspapers. Before long, I was getting letters and audio recordings too. What started off as a hobby became a responsibility — one that eventually inspired me to pursue a degree in media and audiovisual studies.

When I started out, I didn’t think this work would become such an important part of my life. But as the collection grew, I managed to incorporate rare items I came across, and more people started trusting me with their memorabilia. My goal was never to put on exhibitions — it was to bring these materials back to life. Part of that is preserving them, but a big part is displaying them. I don’t believe they should be hidden away in a drawer.

How can we teach people the importance of preserving items related to the occupation, especially when those objects carry painful or difficult memories?

Not everyone has the means to preserve their archives; that is usually the responsibility of the state, cultural institutions, or even political parties. But that protective work wasn’t done properly in the South, so individuals took it upon themselves to do it.

We’re talking about a time when there were no digital cameras. There was no digitizing or preserving newspapers and magazines, let alone the photographs in peoples’ homes, or the every day belongings of resistance fighters. Without the option of digital preservation, records deteriorate over time. Preserving them consolidates our narrative as Southerners about the occupation and about the resistance. That’s why doing this work is important. Oral history alone is not enough; you need  material to support it. It is complete once complemented by physical records.

My goal was never to put on exhibitions — it was to bring these materials back to life. Part of that is preserving them, but a big part is displaying them. I don’t believe they should be hidden away in a drawer.

Eventually you start to see how carefully the other side — the enemy — handles archiving and how they frame the narrative. If you wanted to research something related to the Palestinian archive, most Palestinian archival material from 1948 is held hostage by the Israeli occupation. The occupation stole these archives in 1948 and controls the version of history it wants to present to the world. All of these materials are now held in the Israeli National Library. Seeing how seriously our enemy covets and deals with such documents makes you realize how far behind we still are.

What are some of the challenges you’ve faced while doing this work?

Six years ago, I started collecting in bulk instead of acquiring just one magazine a month. I reached out to collectors and people in the South, explaining that I was collecting this kind of material, and asking if they would share parts of their personal archives. Upscaling my work presented several challenges.

For starters, finding the material is difficult. Many of the personal archives in the South have been damaged by airstrikes in the war. These materials are already difficult to get your hands on because they’re usually paper and are very old and fragile, if not well maintained.

Then, keeping the materials safe is a constant struggle; safe storage is a big issue for everyone who has archives in the South. Take archivist Amani Rammal for example. Part of her archive was in the South, and she had to relocate it for protection. And for a while, a large part of my newspaper archive was also still in the South because I had nowhere to put it in Beirut.

Oral history alone is not enough; you need material to support it. It is complete once complemented by physical records.

Then there’s the cost. You can’t always get archival materials for free — some people sell them. They even turn up in markets like Souk al-Ahad or old bookstores. Having to constantly spend money on these materials incurs a large cost; you feel a duty to buy them to keep them from getting lost or being thrown away. I cover all the costs myself. I do this while also running my production house, “The Media Booth.”

Trying to digitize these materials is another challenging part of the process. Print newspapers need to be scanned and digitized. It’s also a challenge to assemble a specialized team to compile, digitize, and make these materials accessible so people know what’s in the archive.

Finally, obtaining the materials themselves is another challenge. Much of the archive we have from the occupation days was left behind by the occupier. So just getting hold of a part of it is a real struggle. In Palestine, for example, much of the documents from pre-1948 Palestine are still there, either with the settlers or with Palestinians. But how do you get this archive out of Palestine? This is a great challenge. Its organic place is in Palestine. But how do you keep an attestation from 1933 Jerusalem safe is a real question and challenge.

Materials related to the occupation, to resistance fighters, and to the South Lebanon Army are sensitive and can be dangerous. When people find them left behind in their homes, certain questions come up: if you find materials related to the resistance, or to collaborators from that time, how do you handle them? Do you publish them immediately if they include names, or do you hold onto them? Could publishing them pose a threat to the resistance fighters in question, to their families, their communities? Similarly, could publishing them pose danger to a collaborator’s family, village, or sect? These are the questions we must ask ourselves. These objects carry a heavy responsibility.

Do you ever have to convince people to part with archival material they’re reluctant to give up?

People find it hard to give up these items. And sometimes it’s tiring trying to convince them — even for the sake of preservation. But I feel like it’s my responsibility. I respect their decision. I just hope they keep the materials safe — and the day they’re ready to part with them, I’ll be ready to take them.

It’s honestly not easy. I’ll give you an example. There was a magazine displayed in my 2024 exhibition. Nida’ al-Muqawama (The Call of Resistance) was published by the Lebanese Communist Party. It was a secret publication written, printed, and circulated in small numbers to the fighters in Sour and in the South — it wasn’t available in Beirut — and only one or two issues were produced to maintain its secrecy. There was one person whose job it was to distribute it to the fighters, retrieve it when they’d finished reading it, and distribute it to other fighters. The owner of what may be the only remaining copy of the magazine was, naturally, reluctant to part with it. But once he saw that our project is a serious one and that our work is honest and our intentions sincere, he asked that we give the document another life instead of letting it wither away inside a drawer.

Can you tell us more about last year’s exhibition?

The exhibition in 2025 was really two parts. The first part featured five stories from the 2024 exhibition “Stories from the South,” including about the Qana massacre, Khiam prison, a school bombed in 1999, and a woman named Tuflah Hashem.

The occupation stole these archives in 1948 and controls the version of history it wants to present to the world.

The second part revolved around the ongoing war, because archiving and documentation efforts are ongoing, too. In “Keys Without Homes,” I collected the keys of houses that were destroyed during the war, as well as  anything people managed to save from their homes: fragments of paintings, damaged personal photos, broken plates… These were displayed alongside important household documents, like pre-war photographs, land deeds, and maps, to preserve the memory of homes that were lost.

How did people react to it? What kind of reception did it receive?

The reaction in 2024 was very positive. People who lived through the occupation could reflect on their own experiences — and those who didn’t could finally understand what it meant. They could connect with the stories on display. Putting together the exhibition in 2025, which was part of “Hkeeli” at Beit Beirut, was more challenging because we were in the throes of war. I was torn — I kept asking myself whether this was the right time. The South is still being bombed, but if I don’t speak now, when will I? I saw that this could be an opportunity to tell people what is happening in the South. I confided in friends and they encouraged me to go ahead with it. So I did, and it was worth it.

On the first day of the exhibition in 2025, a woman came up to me. She had been walking through the space, looking closely at everything. When she found out I was the organizer, she showed me photos of her bombed house in Aita al-Chaab and told me how it had also been destroyed in 2006. She said she was sorry about “ruining” the exhibition by touching everything, but that she just wanted to connect with her hometown again. She apologized and said it was the first time she had ever spoken about what happened to her.

People have always wanted to talk about life under occupation, but institutions never paid the topic much attention.

I visited her two days later and she told me her story, which she let me record and add to an exhibition that was then displayed in the South. I think this is a sign that the exhibition is doing its job. People have always wanted to talk about life under occupation, but institutions never paid the topic much attention. Now, whenever I meet someone, I ask if they want to share their story, and they often say yes.

What is the most valuable item in your collection, and how did you acquire it? 

Every document matters to me, especially unique documents. We have a large collection of Palestinian documents — papers, newspapers, and materials — that date before 1948. All of them are historically significant, over 70 years old, and deeply meaningful. The most expensive item I’ve collected is a Palestinian passport from 1943, issued before the Nakba. It was offered to me by a collector for a price higher than my budget at the time.

It belonged to someone from Nablus, Palestine, and his name was Adeeb, just like mine. I thought it over for two days, debating whether I should buy it or wait to find something similar later. But it was a rare document, so I decided to buy it in the end.

How did your work change, if at all, after the 66-Day War? 

The day the 66-Day War ended, I visited multiple villages in the South; people took me to their destroyed homes to see what we could retrieve from them. We managed to save several items from the rubble and add them to the archive. Other people sent me things they found inside their homes. I’ve received a pack of cigarettes and rolling papers left behind by Israeli soldiers, metal parts used for cannon detonation, and a paper torn from the Qur’an — the only remnant of a house.

Sometimes people just leave things on my doorstep. The other morning, I woke up to find a big box of bullets left at my door. I took it in, left for the day, and came back to find something else. Sometimes they reach out to ask if I got what they left — but other times, I don’t know who they are. It could be someone from the village, or someone who knows someone.

We also collected items related to resistance fighters. Somebody brought me a military bag belonging to a fighter who was in their house in Alma al-Chaab. We tried to identify who was there or who was martyred in that house so  we could reach out to the fighter’s family, if they wanted to reclaim his things.

Sometimes people just leave things on my doorstep. The other morning, I woke up to find a big box of bullets. I took it in, left for the day, and came back to find something else.

It’s a big responsibility that I don’t necessarily want and I’m not exactly happy to carry. It’s neither easy nor pleasant to be responsible for this. These items are intimate and personal, so of course I’ll return them if the family asks. My job is to preserve them until then — but they are theirs.

How do you see your archive contributing to the story of the 66-Day War?

People told me I should document stories of fighters, their heroism, what they did in Khiam, and so on. I felt like that wasn’t my area of responsibility, but the responsibility of those who specialize in military matters. And I frankly avoided the security aspect as well; I preferred to steer clear of all of that. I chose to focus on the topic of homes instead, specifically on the people of the South — including myself — whose homes were destroyed in 1982, 1993, 1996, and 2006.

I visited my house many times during the 66-Day War, but I couldn’t bring myself to go inside. But when the war ended and I finally went in, I entered it in a different way than I did before the war. That made me want to work on the themes of houses and keys, and the trauma we inherit from our parents and grandparents around them — like the Palestinians.

In the recording, the woman from Aita al-Chaab talked about how her house was destroyed in 2006. Her husband had built it but never lived in it; he died before he could. She was grateful not to have lost any of her children — but she talked about her house as if it were her child. My house is my child, too. I worked 23 years to build it on top of my family home. We all live in a cycle of attacks by the occupation, stretching from decades ago into today. But these people still refuse to leave their homes and villages. That’s where I found I needed to contribute.

Were you able to move your archive to a safe place? 

I moved part of the archive to Beirut, but even in Beirut, nowhere is safe anymore. There are no secure institutions where this archive can be stored, and no one can absolutely guarantee its safety. Israel has even bombed and destroyed archaeological sites — sites that are thousands of years old! — along with historical religious sites. People are taking it upon themselves to protect the archives and storing them safely.

Much of the archives from the border villages was stolen in the 1970s, and libraries were looted during the Israeli invasion. The same is happening today.

I moved thousands of newspapers and magazines to Beirut. Many people contacted me to offer to help smuggle part of the archive in an ambulance, for example. But I feared for their safety — I could not be responsible for putting their lives at risk. The life of any human being is a million times more important to me than the safety of documents.

Israel has systematically destroyed villages in the South. How do you read that destruction and what it means to identity and memory?

It’s not just about destroying infrastructure; there’s also the erasure of the archives themselves, the records of these places. We don’t know how archives are being stolen, destroyed, burned, or otherwise lost from the collective memory of people who couldn’t take them with them when they fled. This includes the ongoing loss of personal archives, and it isn’t new. Much of the archives in the border villages was stolen in the 1970s, and many libraries were looted in the 1970s and 80s during the Israeli invasion. The same thing is happening today.

The problem is, we still can’t see the bigger picture. A person’s home archive — personal photographs and all — can eventually become part of a village’s collective memory. Today, an entire generation is losing its photos, letters, documents, school certificates, and other everyday records.

Some people have large libraries. Either their houses in frontline villages were bombed, or their archives were damaged in previous wars. Many people in Nabatieh with large libraries saw them bombed, completely destroyed. They gathered what they could from the rubble. This is still happening today, right now. Anyone who has a library in the South is losing it.

What is the importance of preserving our personal archives?

Over time, one person’s personal photographs become part of their village’s collective memory. Initially, your personal photo belongs solely to you. Let’s say it’s a photo of a building with someone standing in front of it. The photo is then a record of the person and the building; it includes information about what the building looked like, how that person used to dress, what surrounded the building, and how this person stood and moved. These are the “household archives” people kept — small collections, really — newspapers from specific events, or recorded videotapes. Over time, these little pieces come together to form the collective memory of a family, a neighborhood and, eventually, a village.

Many people in Nabatieh with large libraries saw them bombed, so they gathered what they could from the rubble. This is still happening today, right now. Anyone who has a library in the South is losing it.

There is no certainty that houses will be rebuilt the way they were, or if they’ll ever look the same again. But the archives help us understand what life was like in a particular village. They help people maintain a connection to it. If you’re originally from Houla, for example, and are displaced to Beirut, seeing photos of yourself in Houla creates an association with a place to return to in your mind, even if you can’t return to your village now. When such pictures disappear, it is a personal loss for each individual — but it’s also a loss for us all

What do you make of the satellite images people are using to check on their homes in the South? Should they be preserved as part of the archive?

Personally, I don’t really connect with them. It’s hard for me to form an emotional connection with a satellite image. For me, when you look at a satellite image of a village with a thousand destroyed houses, they just become a thousand destroyed houses — mass destruction. But when I see a picture of a house, I see something different: I see a home with a soul, a story, and people. When I see a single house — even a stone from what used to be a house — I, personally, can form a much stronger emotional connection with it than I can with a satellite image of a thousand destroyed houses.

Still, they’re important for two reasons. For one, we know that most of these mapping companies, like Google Maps, serve Israel. And a company like Google Maps can control what we see on the map. But also, Google Maps doesn’t update frequently enough. The Israelis are altering the geography of the South — and these changes don’t always show on Google Maps. Just yesterday in Qantara, an entire hill was destroyed. A hill, gone! The geography, erased. Now there’s a huge crater where it used to be. If you go to Kfarkela, the road that takes you from Kfarkela to Odaisseh is just gone — you wouldn’t even know where it once was.

What can people do to hold onto their identity and history, to protect what’s being taken from them, whether Israel withdraws or not?

Preserving archives, creating memories, is an act of resilience and resistance. There are many villages whose archives were saved and salvaged. This is especially true now, with the digital age; it’s why some of these archives exist at all. Generally speaking, people now carry the responsibility of recreating their destroyed villages from scratch, whether or not they resemble what was there before. In the end, these are their villages; they decide what they will look like. It is up to them to build their memories and rebuild their villages — not just with stone, but also in spirit.

People who are still able to get archives out of their village should, of course, take out whatever they can. Keeping archives in the village is an act of resilience, but salvaging them is an act of resistance at the same time. I’d want my archive to remain in my house. But if I were to move it to Beirut, I’d keep it somewhere safe. That in itself is an act of resistance, because it helps us in the future. It allows us to create our own narrative. It also helps us in this ongoing cultural war between us and the occupation.

What are you currently working on in light of the renewed escalation?

I am constantly collecting. Whenever I hear that someone has retrieved belongings from a house or found something in the rubble, I get in touch with them. In Kfartebnit, for example, I collected items from my wife’s family home, including military remnants that fighters had left behind, and carefully preserved them. During this war, I collected the leaflets that Israel dropped over Beirut, and recently added a missile fragment from Chamaa to the collection. I’m still searching for older materials, including magazines and newspapers from southern Lebanon dating back to the 1980s and 1990s.

These are the “household archives” people kept — small collections, really — newspapers from specific events, or recorded videotapes. These little pieces come together to form the collective memory of a family, a neighborhood and, eventually, a village.

I’m also recording oral histories — documenting the testimonies of six women whose lives have been shaped by decades of war, since the Israeli occupation. I’m working on three parts: one about women who were displaced; another about women who remained steadfast; and a third about women who resisted, from the mothers of martyrs and wounded fighters, to those who played a direct or indirect role in the resistance, like remaining in the village to cook for the fighters.