University student Nazan Ünaldı, 19, died in Taksim

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Nazan Ünaldı was born in 1958, in Boyabat, Sinop.

She was a first-year student in the School of Foreign Languages at Istanbul University. The third child of the Ünaldı family, she went to Taksim Square on 1 May 1977 together with her older sister.

She was only 19 years old when she lost her life on 1 May 1977.

According to the autopsy report, the cause of her death was mechanical asphyxia as a result of compression of the chest.

Nazan Ünaldı studied French at the School of Foreign Languages, while her friend Ayşe Seylâ Ertem studied German. Ayşe heard of her friend's death on the radio late one night. Even today, she struggles to describe the shock and pain she experienced at the time. "She was my dear, dear friend," she says of Nazan Ünaldı.

She shed countless tears in the wake of her friend's death, a friend she had sat next to at school for three years, and whom she regretted not accompanying to the square on 1 May 1977. "My mother threatened to kill herself if I dared to go to the First of May rally that year," she says.

I reached Ayşe Seylâ Ertem via her daughter, Özge Ertem. In a photo of Özge Ertem that I came across, she is at the First of May Square on the 40th anniversary of 1 May 1977. In her hands she holds a photograph of her mother's dear, dear friend, Nazan Ünaldı.

Halime Güner helped me reach other friends of Nazan, with whom she studied at Istanbul Girls' High School. Their names were written on the class's photo composite. Some of the names have a familiar ring, and some are of people we know well.

So it will come as no surprise to learn that, in reaching out to the students of this class, which was clearly a particularly "bright" one, what I discovered affected me deeply. I found that every single one of the people I contacted to ask about their memories of Nazan Ünaldı, had built their own lives upon the foundation of the values they believed in.

They spoke of Nazan Ünaldı with high praise, as someone who had truly influenced and been an inspiration to them.

Speaking with her friends, I couldn't help but ponder what all Nazan Ünaldı, this woman who impressed everyone so greatly with her intelligence and her character, might have done had she lived. I thought first of myself at age 19, and then of all that had been taken away from Nazan Ünaldı.

I was unable to reach any of Nazan Ünaldı's family members, and so it was her friends Ayşe Seylâ Ertem, Suzan Serim Kum, and Serpil Gür who told me about her.

Ayşe Seylâ Ertem, friend, tells

Nazan was a wonderful friend and an excellent student. She studied every day. She always got the highest grades. She let us copy off her sometimes but she always made us study too. She did her best to teach us. She'd tell us, "If you're going to copy, fine, but at least know what you're copying!"

Nazan was often upset, but she'd never say what about. She never went into details. She'd just shrug, saying she was in a bad mood.

We usually packed our lunches at home and gathered in the canteen to eat. There were some less fortunate students among us, boarders who got by with the little government support they received; they never had enough money to buy anything from the canteen.

Nazan was always using her own allowance to buy them sandwiches. And she'd make do with bread and cheese. Or we'd be having hotdog sandwiches, but those students would only be able to afford bread with sauce on it. So Nazan would give them her hotdog and just eat the bread and sauce. I later started following Nazan's example and doing this too. So the two of us always ended up eating bread with sauce during lunchtime.

Nazan's family

Nazan had no ego at all. Her friends were incredibly important to her. And she never ever talked about anyone behind their backs. Whatever she thought, she said it to your face. She was very honest.

She was her parents' third child. She had an older sister named Zülal. It was Zülal she went with on 1 May 1977. Her mother Nebahat and father Mehmet heard of her death from the radio on the bus, on their way to Boyabat.

That was the first they heard of it. Aunt Nebahat nearly fainted. Can you imagine the pain? Could there be a greater pain than that?

We cried so much

I remember that we knew the First of May Workers' Anthem by heart, and that Nazan helped me with the parts I had trouble learning. She was already going to demonstrations before 1 May 1977. She took part in political meetings as well and she was very enthusiastic about it.

My mother tried to keep me from doing all of that. She threatened to kill herself if I went to the First of May that year. She made me swear I wouldn't go. I cried so much and I felt horribly guilty about it. I was so sad that Nazan was there by herself.

I shed so many tears.

Nazan's sister Zülal cried so much too. She was devastated that they'd gone to the square together but that she'd come back without Nazan. And I cried so much too, because I'd let Nazan go without me. I'm very cool-headed in situations like that, so that's the first thought that came to my mind: that if only I'd been there, I could have saved Nazan.

Identifying the body

It was her brother-in-law who identified her, the husband of her oldest sister. She was completely unrecognizable. Which isn't surprising, since they figure she'd been crushed by a tank.

There's this sweet memory I have of her. One day Nazan came over to our house. I served leeks in olive oil, and she loved it. I went to her place a couple of weeks later and she told me she'd made me a surprise dish.

Next thing I know, I see that she's made me leeks in olive oil, my favourite dish, and she knows it's my favourite too. So she went to the trouble to cook leeks because I was coming over, and she did an excellent job of it. "Leeks in olive oil is my favourite dish as well, because it's so easy to make, no onion required," she said. We had a real laugh at that.

Her death was such a loss for us, for the country. Sadly, my dear, dear friend Nazan, she left us before being able to enjoy the true depth of friendship of that age.

Suzan Serim Kum, friend, tells

Nazan was different. She had such a good heart. She was a calm, sensitive, caring, reliable, forthright friend. What set her apart most of all was her intelligence really. She had a profound, brilliant mind. These are the characteristics that made her unforgettable to me.

Nazan occupies a special place in my life. We were in our final year of high school. I was frequently absent from class because I was very involved in athletics. There were always lessons and exams that I missed. And so I ended up on the verge of failing my last year of high school. I was given one last chance to take a philosophy exam, and if I didn't pass, I wouldn't graduate.

Our philosophy teacher, Semahat Aköz, was a true educator. She did her best to convey to us that infinite knowledge of hers, and this of course was very hard for us. The books she recommended in preparation for the exam were different from the ones that the school and the Ministry of National Education recommended, and then there were the endless notes we had to take during her classes too.

I graduated thanks to her

As you can imagine, I was behind on class notes too because of my frequent absences. The exam was in June. Even if you memorized all of Ms. Aköz's philosophy notes, you were still bound to fail.

The reason for this is that she wanted you to answer the questions using your own words. I told Nazan how panicked I was about this exam, but I definitely did not ask her to tutor me.

The next week she pulled me aside and told me she was going to tutor me and review all of the lessons with me, and she did just that, she went over all the topics in philosophy, logic, and sociology that might show up on the exam. Plus she gave me the notes she'd taken in class so I could study those too.

Over the following days we got together a few more times and studied the topics she'd chosen. I got 9 out of 10 on that philosophy exam. So it was thanks to her that I was able graduate from Istanbul Girls' High School. That's the kind of wonderful person Nazan was.

Thoroughly different

I'll never forget, because I didn't go to her, but rather she came to me. She understood that I needed help and even though I didn't ask her to, she showed real solidarity and helped me as much as she could. I passed her notebooks on to someone else, to help them out. I regret that so much now. I wish I'd hung on to Nazan's notebooks.

And then one day this happened: At the time, we frequently had debates in class, where we'd talk about and discuss various topics. I recall that one day, our teacher chose "motherly love" as our debate topic.

That day Nazan addressed even the topic of motherly love in such a purely logical way that even our literature teacher was in awe of her. You could see it in the teacher's eyes.

We meanwhile berated ourselves for not having looked at it the way she had. So, you see, that's the kind of person Nazan was. She could approach any topic from within a logical framework and discuss and debate it with you from a thoroughly different perspective.

One aspect that has made Nazan unforgettable to me is her intelligence, which I admired greatly.

Serpil Gür, friend, tells

If she'd lived, Nazan would have been a woman of great service to her country. I'm 63 years old now, she would have been around the same age. But it didn't happen. Nazan and I were able to talk about so many different things, because both of us were interested in politics. And at that age, there aren't a lot of people you can discuss politics with, or question things like the state of the nation.

For example, there was the issue of migration from the rural countryside to the cities, and hemp production had been banned, and Nazan and I could sit and talk about these things. We read so much, and so we did a lot of research of course.

They were ruthlessly getting rid of teachers back then too. Nazan and I talked about this issue, considering our own teachers. We read Elementary Principles of Philosophy together.

Our philosophy teacher

We had this philosophy teacher who was a big influence on us. She always wanted us to read and debate. Nazan was very enthusiastic about her lessons. She was constantly asking questions and when she did so each of her questions was posed within a particular logical framework. Nazan was always an active participant. She was always asking questions, researching, questioning things.

On 1 May 1977, I was 18 years old. I didn't see Nazan on the square that day. We weren't able to meet up. A bunch of us were supposed to go together, but none of us were able to meet.

My worst memory related to her was of course seeing her name in the papers the day after 1 May 1977. It was so terribly sad. We lost so many people that day, precious people, like Nazan.

If Nazan were alive today, she'd be doing amazing, wonderful things. That day, they took people like Nazan away from us. It was a dreadful thing that we experienced. (TY/APA/SD)

This text was created and maintained with the financial support of the European Union provided under Etkiniz EU Programme. Its contents are the sole responsibility of "IPS Communication Foundation" and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

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