Teacher Mustafa Elmas, 33, died in Taksim

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Mustafa Elmas was born in 1944. His place of birth is registered as Malkara, Tekirdağ.

He was a teacher and member of the Alliance and Solidarity Association of All Teachers (TÖB-DER). He worked at two schools to provide for his family: the Hoca İshak Efendi Primary School in Beyoğlu, and the Hasköy Middle School.

According to the autopsy report, the cause of his death was mechanical asphyxia as a result of compression of the chest and abdomen. The report also states that the external scratches on his body may have been caused by falling or being pushed to the ground during the crush.

Reaching his family

We managed to reach Mustafa Elmas's wife thanks to his daughter, Nazlı Bayraktar, who had written to us via the official bianet account when we first started the portraits of those who died on 1 May 1977. However, due to the pandemic and other reasons, we have only just been able to hold the interview.

We have now published the stories of the six teachers and TÖB-DER members who were killed on 1 May 1977.

Since Nazlı was only six years old when her father died, she only knows her father through the words of her mother. For that reason she put in a great deal of effort to get her mother to talk to us.

Mustafa Elmas's wife, Selme Elmas, tells us about the kind of husband and father Mustafa Elmas was, why he was in Taksim Square on 1 May 1977, and his funeral service...

Selme Elmas, wife:

We were in love when we got married, very much in love. He was studying when we met. We were engaged for four years. We got married in 1967. We had two children: one girl, one boy.

I never remarried. In any case, I could never find someone like him. Even if I could forget him...

Mustafa was a good person, he was wonderful. He really loved his children, and me too.

He loved taking me on trips, taking me places. He would always surprise me. He'd never come home empty-handed. One day he came home carrying a television, he'd bought it because I wanted one.

"I'm going to buy a paper"

We were in Istanbul at the time, we were living in Halıcıoğlu.

That day was a Sunday. There was this place under the bridge, the whole family was going to go there for a picnic. The kids were going to fly kites, we had their kites ready.

The bridge was close to the Hoca İshak school. In the morning, Mustafa left the house, saying he was going to buy a paper. I'd prepared lots of cakes and biscuits; we waited and waited for Mustafa but he never came.

I asked one of his friends, "Mustafa didn't come, have you seen him?" He said they hadn't seen him. They had though. Maybe they didn't want to tell me.

I sat in front of the window and watched the street. It got to the evening call to prayer and still no sign. When it was almost time for the night-time prayers, I started to call his other teacher friends. They couldn't tell me anything either. I waited in front of the window until morning, thinking he might come home at any moment.

I flung the radio

After the morning prayer, I picked up the radio, it must have been on the six o'clock news that I heard Mustafa's name. I thought it was probably a worker with the same name, what would Mustafa be doing there? I didn't know he was a member of TÖB-DER. Then they said, "Teacher Mustafa Elmas from the village of Cumhuriyet in Malkara."

I flung the radio out of my hand.

I started to scream and cry. He was in the Taksim Emergency Hospital. I went and got my neighbour and said let's go and find Mustafa. When she heard, she broke down too.

Then his friends came; they had a policeman friend from the village with them. You can't go to get him, we'll bring him, they said.

He loved his students

They looked for his body in the morgue. He also taught at the Hasköy School, he worked at two schools to provide for us. Students from that middle school came when they heard the news of his death, they filled the streets, crying "Mustafa Elmas will live on." The next day we took his body and went to the village. His grave is in the village now.

That day, I realised that his students really loved him too.

My late husband was a good person to everyone, of course they loved him.

Faruk Eren, student:

Mustafa Elmas, who taught our Commerce classes at the Hasköy Middle School was among the dead. He also taught at a primary school. His was the first funeral I attended.

After that, funerals seemed to become a normal part of our lives, we went to funeral after funeral. (One day, while I was getting my daughter ready for school, I saw the newsflash that Berkin Elvan had died. I ran straight to the Okmeydanı hospital. Decades have passed and we're still attending the funerals of our people who have been killed.)

I never saw Mustafa Elmas's photograph in the posters of those who died on 1 May. But I can still picture his face. I remember him as a real Anatolian young man with slightly slanted eyes. He was a member of TÖB-DER. I think he was from the Soviet tradition. After an argument at middle school I remember him asking me, crossly, "Are you a Maoist?"

[From the book Kayıp Bir Devrimin Hikayesi (The Story of a Lost Revolution) by journalist Faruk Eren]

(TY/APA/VK)

* Faruk Eren, "Kayıp Bir Devrimin Hikâyesi", 2019, İletişim Yayınları, Istanbul.

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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