Much of 11-year-old Hamsa Abdul Khadom's young life has been punctuated by the sound of car bombs exploding in Iraq. Her 13-year-old brother, Maher, can't shake the memory of kidnappers ripping their 6-year-old neighbor from his mother's arms.

BEN FREDMAN/DMN

Hamsa Abdul Khadom (left) remembers the sound of car bombs near her home in Basra. Her brother, Maher, still sees a 6-year-old being snatched from his mother's arms.

Their house in Basra was shot at twice, and militants tried to kill their father because of his leadership of a minority religious group.

Now safe in Dallas, the children still don't understand the war.

Maher was about 8 when the war started. The older he gets, the more it confuses him, he said.

"I want to understand," he said. "I've heard many things, but I don't understand."

Hamsa is also at a loss.

"I cannot know the war or the reason the war started," she said.

Hamsa said she can't forget the sounds of explosions about 500 yards away.

"I couldn't see it, but I could hear car bombs – the mortar, the vibrations. It was a big sound, horrible sound."

Maher was traumatized when he saw his young neighbor abducted two years ago and feared he would suffer the same fate.

"The boy was walking with his mother when suddenly [a] car came," Maher said. "His mother was screaming. I ran away."

That boy's family paid $5,000 for his release and later fled to Sweden, said Hamsa and Maher's father, Haitham Rassan.

Mr. Rassan left Iraq with his family after their home was peppered with bullets for a second time, in 2006. They fled to Syria and, with help from the U.N. refugee agency, came to the U.S. in March.

"I feel very lucky to be here," Maher said from the family's modest two-bedroom apartment in northeast Dallas. "My hopes are to get my learning and graduate from a college. Maybe this will make me a good future. I think I will get nothing in Iraq."

Maher said he can't imagine visiting Iraq right now, but Hamsa said she would like to return someday.

"If the conditions in Iraq get better, I ... [want] to get back because it is my country," she said.

But she wants to leave the war far behind. She says that even when she has children, she won't share her memories.

"I don't want to tell them about the war because I don't want to tell them about the killings," she said.

She and her brother have started school in Dallas and, despite a language barrier, are making friends. Hamsa hopes to play basketball for her school team, and Maher wants to play soccer again.

Although it's hard to understand the conflict in their home country, Hamsa and Maher said they know they are fortunate to have escaped the violence.

"If we were still in Iraq," Hamsa said, "my father might still be killed."