Martha Hodes on “My Hijacking: A Personal History of Forgetting and Remembering”

In her memoir, “My Hijacking: A Personal History of Forgetting and Remembering,” historian Martha Hodes goes back fifty years to tell the story of being a passenger on an airliner hijacked in 1970.
On September 6, 1970, twelve-year-old Hodes and her thirteen-year-old sister were flying unaccompanied home to New York City from Israel when their plane was hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and forced to land in the Jordan desert. Nearly a half century later, her memories of those six days and nights as a hostage remained hazy and scattered.
In “My Hijacking” Hodes applies a historian’s tools to recreate the personal and global story of what happened on TWA flight 741, drawing on deep archival research, childhood memories, and conversations with relatives, friends, and fellow hostages. The Center for Brooklyn History joined her in conversation as she shed light on the hostage crisis that shocked the world, unraveled her own understanding of what happened, and reflected on the fallibilities of memory and the lingering impact of trauma.
Recorded August 2, 2023.