Tag #125446 - Interview #97881 (Lina Franko)

I was a well-liked student in the 29th Primary School in Ortakoy. One of my teachers who liked me very much wanted to call me by her own name, Yıldız. The name “Kemal” was given to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk [9] also by his teacher. My teacher must have been inspired by this event. My father didn’t favor this situation much, but for a while I was called Yıldız at school. My teacher would invite me to her house and treat me as if I was her own daughter. My father wasn’t very happy about this intimacy. He would politely turn down my teacher’s offers to have me over at her summer house. I often took part in the plays at school, and was found to be succesful. Today, if they ask me what I would like to be if I could be born again I would say “an announcer”. This is probably due to my memories from my school years. My Muslim friends’ mothers used wear a black scarf first when I was in the primary school. Later on, they started using colored ones. And most of them uncovered their heads as a result of the Ataturk reforms. [10] For this reason, I have a big love for Ataturk and secularity.

Ataturk’s death holds a special place in my memories. That morning, on the 10th of November in 1938, we saw the teachers running all of a sudden. They gathered us in the garden. The eyes of the teachers were swollen from crying. First, they told us to take out our white collars and then they sent us home. A mourning atmosphere was also prevailing at home. I remember all the students having been taken to Dolmabahce Palace [Ataturk’s residence at the time], and everybody crying. I also remember memorizing Ataturk poems. We were all crying as we passed in front of his body.