Stories

Story of a government employee who was jailed for 10 months for having a messaging app on her phone. She talks about her time in jail, how her two sons were affected from the events and how they decided to take the big risk of fleeing the country after she was released. At the time of the interview, she was in Greece with her two sons and she was waiting to unite with her husband in Germany.

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Story of a preschool teacher who was once acknowledged with many awards but labeled a terrorist later: a mother who had to give birth all alone, a wife who had to afford her family’s life by painting stones, surely a warrior who had to leave everything she built behind.

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Neither hundreds of cockroaches around her nor sharing a 26-bed capacity cell with 70 other women devastated her. With no clock in the cell, she and her cellmates made their own sun clock by using the sunbeams coming through the small windows of their cell. Only then could they figure out the time and start or break their fast in Ramadan. Still, she lovingly remembers the breakfast prepared by an elderly in the cell on the eid morning. The conditions were horrible, and the accusations were indeed offensive. Yet, it was the goodness of people around her that made her imprisonment unforgettable.

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After pursuing her academic career in the US, the only thing she wanted was to go back to her home country and carry her knowledge to young brains. She was happy to be an academic at one of the most prestigious colleges in Turkey and feeling fulfilled by serving her country in the way she knew the best: Science. Until that day... In this interview, she is not only telling her story of how she was left jobless and not even given a chance of working at another school, but also as a sociologist, she is evaluating how the society had changed after the coup attempt. With his husband's nervous break down and her children's heart breaking memories of Turkey, she is back in the US where she now calls "home".

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She wouldn’t know that her last birthday in Turkey would be the beginning of unprecedented events and a new life for her and her son in a foreign country. While debating herself to leave behind her husband imprisoned or taking her son to a safer country, she didn’t know that her husband had already seen them leaving Turkey in his dream even before she told him so. In their last family hug on that day, the only bond was their son between her and her beloved husband as they were not allowed to touch each other. Now in a new country, she is doing her best to build a new life for her son and make everything ready for her husband with the hope that he can, too, join them one day.

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She was 9-months-pregnant when her husband was jailed. With the fear of being prosecuted after her husband, she could not even feel being a mother. Raising her daughter without her husband now, she knows she has to be strong and she waits for the time her husband will be released.

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She is a mother of four in her fifties. Her son, brother, son-in-law and her husband were prosecuted in different times. Never missing any prison visit to see her son in a city with 10-hour bus-ride, she experiences hardship upon hardship as multiple prosecutions hit the family.

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Deciding to flee Turkey right after giving birth to her baby wasn’t the hardest thing in her story. Confronting her sea phobia in a small boat and watching her husband fell off into the sea while fleeing was not, either. Yet, this is not a story of a mother only, but also the story of a 4-year-old girl who had to grow up in one night.

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Being a teacher who devoted herself to education, her students were the only ones she missed even more than her own children when she was incarcerated. Leaving all her loved ones behind, she had to spend 7 months in prison where she was kept as a substitute for her police officer husband. This is the story of a woman who was surprised when the guardian hugged her and cried with joy when she was released. Yet, with fear of being taken to prison back and being judged without due process, she had to flee Turkey with another fear: wading through Evros River with her little ones.

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Story of a 45-year-old academic who was later dismissed from her position. Experiencing the oppressive environment of Februray 28 post-modern coup as a headscarved college student, she sees the current situation more traumatizing with heavy polarization and otherization in the society. She does not want to associate herself with the current oppressive regime and does not wear headscarf anymore.

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Story of a 75-year-old Kurdish woman, the witness of past coups, the mother of seven children who suffered from the post-coup persecutions to the deepest. With a brother who was arrested in the 1980's coup, she still finds the 2016's failed-coup more devastating with her sons and daughters being either dismissed, detained, or imprisoned. In her late age, where she had hoped to feel peace, she is now grieving for small children who are left behind with no parent. 

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Story of a government employee who was dismissed from her job after the coup attempt for being a former member of a worker’s union. She hopes to have a better life in another country as she already feels like a stranger to her own home country.

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Story of a teacher who gave birth to twins four days after the coup attempt. Facing her neighbor’s insults and being called “traitor”, over time it became more and more difficult to resist the pressure around her family. After moving from one place to another to start a new life, eventually, they had to accept the fact that there was no place for them where they would feel safe and secure anymore. After all, they were left with one and only one bitter decision: flee from their own homeland.

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Story of a woman who was dismissed and who had to discontinue her education due to safety concerns. When she and her husband decided to flee Turkey through Evros River, they told their little daughter that they would show up in the Survivor show and pass through challenges. When they saw their daughter getting so excited and happy about being on a show, they thought they did the right thing by not sharing the bitter truth. It was only until the moment that she had figured out she was not on a show but indeed escaping from something. 

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Story of a 18-year-old high school senior who was a student in one of the schools that was later shut down by the government. She talks about how her father was arrested and how she had to be strong to support her mom and younger sister afterwards.

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In this story, you will meet a young girl who never had to work, ride public transportation by herself, or pay a bill in her whole life until her parents and siblings had to flee the country. She shares the challenges she faced while living in Turkey all alone and how she crossed the Mexican border.

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