‘The Diary Abroad’ in Stuttgart Museum

Between October 16, 2021, and January 2, 2022, tablets containing the diaries of Kurdish martyr Gurbetelli Ersöz, a journalist and one of the founders of the Kurdish Women’s Freedom Movement, will be on exhibit in a museum in Stuttgart.

Banu Cennetoğlu, who opened her library in the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart with 145 ready-to-print lithographic limestone plates, handled important details such as prohibitions such as on “working as a journalist” that Gurbetteli Ersöz faced during the years she worked in the press and was subject to various heavy penalties.

The promotional catalog for the museum includes the years when Kurdish journalist Gurbetteli Ersöz was Editor-in-Chief of Özgür Gündem Newspaper, the Turkish state’s corrupt war with the PKK, and the outcomes of that war.

While Ersöz was the editor-in-chief of Özgür Gündem, she and her colleagues were tortured for 13 days. In 1997, the Turkish state shot Ersöz in the south of Kurdistan with a German-made Leopard tank.

Banu Cennetoğlu, a photographer, printed media and installation artist, pointed out that “The prohibitions remain in place, and more than 8,500 Kurdish prisoners, including elected politicians and journalists, have been jailed or sentenced for alleged PKK connections. Hundreds of books remain prohibited. One of them is Ersöz’s diary.”

“Yüreğimi Dağlara Nakşettim (Carved my Heart into the Mountains)” is the diary Gurbetelli Ersöz kept between 27 July 1995 and 8 October 1997.

The museum, which opened on October 16, will be open until January 2, 2022.

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