My Hijacking

Fascinating combination of history and psychology. The author was only 12 years old in 1970 when her flight from Tel Aviv to New York City was hijacked by Palestinians intent on winning freedom for their imprisoned compatriots. Accompanied only by her 13 year old sister, Martha spent six days and nights inside the plane before being released and sent home. The hijacking took place long before anyone was talking about PTSD or trauma-focused therapy; Martha returned to school and downplayed the event, even starting to question if it really happened. After 9/11, memories suppressed for more than 30 years started to surface. Eventually Martha realized she needed to go back and piece together the incident to determine why she remembered so little of such a terrifying ordeal.

Hodes starts with the bare bones of her few remaining memories and the brief entries she made in her diary at the time, then widens the scope to her parents' perspective, diplomatic attempts to free the hostages (Henry Kissinger was preoccupied by Vietnam), and the news media's ghoulish emphasis on the likelihood that the hostages would be killed. Through interviews with fellow passengers and research into historical documents, she is able to construct a comprehensive account of the events and develop a theory of why she was able to repress so much of it (it might have been nice to know that the Red Cross was distributing sedatives to the passengers!).

I've read some reviews complaining that the book is repetitive, but that's the entire point. Each time Hodes tells the story, it becomes more complete and nuanced, a reminder that our memories are far from reliable. You don't have to be Jewish to appreciate it either; its lessons are universal, and Hodes very carefully avoids taking sides in the Israeli/Palestinian crisis.