JERSEY CITY, N.J.—Hussam Al Roustom and his wife didn’t tell anyone before they and their two small children left Syria, fearing their plans for escape could fall apart.
Leaving their homeland had never been part of the picture. Al Roustom had a supermarket and owned their home in the western Syria city of Homs. But a civil war that started with unrest in 2011 had taken its toll, especially on his son Wesam, already dealing with autism and so traumatized by the barrage of violence that he stopped speaking entirely.
When they [my children] would exit the house, it was only to the sounds of war.
