Authors tell story of daring rescue of Afghan women: Rams Head Inn hosts event promoting new book

Imagine living in a country where you have known only war and repression your entire life. That is the life Afghan women have known. 

Then imagine you had a chance to flee the country when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. But you had only a half hour to pack a few critical items and rush to the airport, leaving parents, siblings, friends and the only life you have known, to come to another country. 

For 124 people rescued and resettled in the United States, that was their reality. 

Authors Rebeca Blumenstein and Diana Kapp wrote a book — “The Last Free Women” — about the rescue and efforts to open doors here for the refugees. Public relations expert Lisa Dallos, founder of High 10 Media and a Shelter Island resident, has known Ms. Blumenstein for years, and invited the authors to come to the Island. 

The two writers were on Shelter Island the evening of Aug. 22 before an audience of about 150 people at The Rams Head Inn, not simply to sell their book, but to appeal to people to open their hearts and their minds, sharing with others what they learned.

Ms. Blumenstein and Ms. Kapp said they know for everyone able to leave Afghanistan, the women left behind would be subject to the same limited opportunities of those who were had not escaped. 

Afghan women still in that country are prisoners in their own homes, unable to leave unless escorted by a male relative. They can’t pursue education, so when they have any education, it has to be hidden. Today, of 65 Muslim countries around the world, Afghanistan is the only one that doesn’t allow women to go to school, Ms. Blumenstein said. 

So dedicated are Mr. Blumenstein and Ms. Kapp to the needs of refugees, they are contributing some of the profits from the book to the Journalism Refugees Education Fund, which supports journalists and local staff and their families in exile. The Fund was organized to help the refugees restart their lives, providing financial assistance to attend college or pursue career training. 

In other wars when the United States has wound down operations, many who had assisted the Americans were left behind, often to die at the hands of the rulers. That so many were able to be rescued and then helped to restart their lives in the United States is very unusual.  

Ms. Blumenstein, who was working at The New York Times, was aided by publisher A.G. Sulzberger in finding ways to help those Afghans and their immediate family members to  settle in this country. “I didn’t know anything about evacuating people,” Ms. Blumenstein said. 

The process included getting many of those who had assisted American journalists as translators, drivers and with other jobs, out of Afghanistan where they likely would have been killed by the existing regime. That motivated Ms. Blumenstein to do what she could not only to get them to the United States but to pursue their desire for education and job training. 

“I became much more involved than I ever thought,” Ms. Blumenstein told attendees at The Rams Head Inn event. 

With Mr. Sulzberger’s guidance, her outreach motivated a friend to open doors to get the women to Qatar, then Mexico and finally to Houston where an interfaith registry helped find housing for the arrivals. For a few months, The Times paid their rent. Some colleges were successful in offering educational opportunities.  

The people in Houston were generous, bringing food and necessities. “These were ordinary people rising to the occasion to do incredible things,” Ms. Blumenstein said. 

To skeptics about what life is like for women still in Afghanistan, Ms. Blumenstein said a recent law passed there made it legal for husbands to beat their wives as long as they didn’t break any bones. “Their stories need to be told,” Ms. Blumenstein said. 

“Around the world, journalists are at greater risk than ever,” according to the book. More information about the Journalism Refugees Education Fund is available atjournalismref.org.