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Heela Yaacoobi
Mr. Harris
US History
27 April 2015
Historical Memories
My family endured a drastically fluctuating life in Afghanistan. Rather than having
memories of Kennedy being shot, or the Beatles, many members of my family remember events
that happened in their homeland and in Germany. My grandmother recalls the first exciting and
devastating event that took place in Afghanistan that she could remember: King Nader Shah
being assassinated. King Nader Shah went to Amani high school in Kabul to hand out diplomas
to the first class of graduating high school seniors in the country of Afghanistan. Jamilas uncle
was among the graduates in that class. We were at the house setting up for the graduation party
when we got the news. King Nader Shah had been assassinated by a student in that graduating
class. We were all so shocked and immediately went to go see if my uncle was okay. When we
got to the school, we found out that the whole graduating class had been arrested in suspicion of
the assassination. My uncle was due to serve sixteen years in jail for a crime that he did not
commit. This event is still in my grandmothers memory and is hard for her to forget.
The most memorable event for any Afghan living in the 1980s was the Russian invasion.
My mother recalls this event clearly. We were sleeping when we heard the noise of bombs and
gunshots coming from outside. The bombs lit up the whole city like it was daytime. My mother
hid all of the children under blankets to try and calm them down. I was thirteen years old at the
time and I did not know what was going on. Our servants came running upstairs and they were
very scared also. We locked ourselves in a room and turned on the television and radio, but the
only thing that was on was an emergency sound, but no words telling us what was going on. That

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night, we stayed up all night until the sun came up and in the morning we sent our servant to go
check on our neighbors to see if they knew what was happening. The servant came back and
stated that the neighbors did not know what was going on either. We turned the radio back on
and the broadcast had announced that there had been a coup dtat. They warned us to stay at our
houses and established a military curfew. My mother was very scared because my father had
died a couple of years before this happened, and she was alone. I could tell that she was very
scared, but she was trying her best to remain calm for us. The radio kept us up to date with the
events happening following this night. They announced that President Daoud Khan had been
assassinated by the communist force and they took over his palace. Later in the week, my mom
found out that her best friend, who was the granddaughter of Dauod Khan, was also assassinated.
My mother was devastated, and did not wish to go back to school because she would feel the
absence of her best friend. The communists killed everyone from Dauod Khans family ranging
from his two year old child all the way to the most elderly. They did not want any of Dauod
Khans family to survive. A week later, when the curfew was abolished, everyone was amazed at
the white foreigners riding through the streets of Kabul in tanks. That was when we found out
that Russia had invaded our country. This event majorly touched every member of my family
and every member of the Afghan community outside of Afghanistan.
After fleeing Afghanistan and moving to Germany, my father clearly remembers the
attempted assassination of President Regan. It was March of 1981 and it was a little while after
we had fled our country. I was in Hamburg, Germany with my uncle when we heard the news of
President Regan being shot. We were all worried about this event because we were waiting on
our visas to go to America. We did not know what the status of our visas would look like if the

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President of the United States would have died. Fortunately, the president survived the attack
and my parents visas came right on time to start their new lives in the United States.