An Archive of Despair

Monday, 5 March

This day will be always remembered, as the day when books were assassinated by the forces of darkness, hatred and fanaticism. . . . Tens of thousands of papers were flying high, as if the sky was raining books, tears and blood. The view was surreal. Some of the papers were burning in the sky.

* * *

Eskander, 44, is slim and firm, with a long, angled face, short, wavy hair peppered with gray flecks, and round glasses. An ethnic Kurd born in Baghdad, he joined the Kurdish resistance in the mountains of northern Iraq when he was 19, then later lived in Iran and Syria. At 28, he moved to England, where he earned a doctorate and became a British citizen.

After the invasion, Eskander was among a phalanx of Iraqi expatriates who streamed into Baghdad to help rebuild. By then, thousands of antiquities had been looted from the National Museum and archaeological sites in a nation with 11 centuries of history. During a three-day rampage at the National Library and Archive, looters stole hundreds of rare, centuries-old Islamic documents and texts, including a 16th-century treatise by the ancient Islamic philosopher Ibn Sina. Military and national security records were torched, apparently to erase evidence. Fire, smoke and water damaged much of the remaining texts.

Before he accepted his job, Eskander drove past the charred, partly gutted building. A few employees sat outside with blank looks, he recalled. On the first day, "I didn't have any chair to sit on. There was no electricity, no water. Dogs and cats lived inside the library."

Saturday, 10 March

Three bombs exploded in my neighborhood. Two bombs went off at 7.30. They violently shook my flat, as I was watching some TV programme. At 13.20, another bomb exploded in my neighborhood. It shook my flat.

I spent the whole day writing and reading in my room.

* * *

Unlike in other government buildings, there are no portraits of politicians or clerics at the library. Eskander won't allow it, nor jokes with sectarian overtones.

"When you work in the government, you shouldn't be a Kurd or a Sunni or a Shia," said Eskander. "You should be Iraqi."