Ferede Wondemagiun Tyahu

Father's name: Wefera Wondemagiun Tyahu

Mother's name: Demkaz Zenba

Year of birth: 1941

Place of birth: Skutha, Tsalamti, Tigray

Region in Ethiopia: Tigray

Main occupation in Ethiopia: Blacksmith, weapon repairer, and merchant

The language of the interview: Tigrinya

Ferede Wondemagiun Tyahu, nature, agriculture, herding sheep and cattle, blacksmithing, weapons, merchant, murder, school, studies, tools, Bekele Baruch, construction, house, trade, yearning for Israel, Jerusalem, journey, communication, family, Hebrew, faith, customs and traditions, Italians, Derg, Emperor Haile Selassie, EHAPA, Skutha, Tsalamti, Tigray, Sudan, Dima, Meyasberi, Asmara, Gondar.

Summary of the testimony:

Ferede describes his family tree. He relates how his family wandered throughout Ethiopia during the period of Italian rule. After his older sisters were born, his parents struggled to have more children. He describes traditional methods of treatment for infertility. Ferede was eventually born ten years after his sisters.

When he was seven, his father was murdered. The family went to live with his grandmother in the village of Dima. There, Ferede began to help his family herd sheep and cattle and with the farming. The Jews in the village worked in blacksmithing and provided the residents with tools. In exchange, they did not have to pay taxes on their land. After a while, his family moved to the city of Meyasberi.

When he was 20, after he got married, he ran away to Gondar with two friends to study Hebrew in a Jewish school. Upon their arrival, they discovered that the school had been burned down, and they returned home. After a few months, a Hebrew teacher named Bekele Baruch arrived in their city and taught Ferede and his friends to read and write.

At the same time, he began to work as a blacksmith, using his father’s tools. He describes how he learned the profession, lists the various tools, and explains the methods of work. Ferede notes that, in addition to making farming tools, he also repaired weapons, for which there was great demand during this turbulent period. He describes the various armaments and their prices. He talks about their customers. The business grew and prospered. Ferede brought broken weapons from Gondar and Asmara, fixed them, and sold them at a profit. Ferede shows a diagram of his two-storey house, and describes its contents and the materials from which it was built.

From infancy, he absorbed a yearning for Israel. Throughout the years, his family sought any information that could help them migrate to Israel. Because they lived in the city and had access to radio and newspapers, they heard about the waves of immigration to Israel via Sudan. Ferede describes the political climate and the fighting between the EHAPA rebel organization and the Derg regime, which made it difficult to set out on a journey. For a while, he deliberated about the right time to leave; eventually he decided to leave the decision in God’s hands. When he felt his time had come, he sold all his possessions and bought provisions and donkeys. Ferede and his family joined a convoy of 370 people from the area and set out for Sudan in order to immigrate to Israel. Ferede describes the trials and tribulations they experienced on the journey from Ethiopia to Sudan.