Nature is slowly but surely emitting the scent of autumn. I startled up at the voice of a female guerrilla who was originally from Botan and joined the guerrilla ranks long ago. "Comrade, we will now go to the other comrades, you shall know", she said. When she uttered those words, I immediately asked myself: 'To which comrades will they probably go now? If we ask to accompany them, what might they reply?'. To be frank I was very curious to learn where these guerrillas were about to head.

Finally I could not hold myself back anymore and I burst out: "If it does not burden you, might we come along?". That female guerrilla answered thereupon: "No, it is no problem for us, but for safety reason it is not a good idea at all. Therefore we cannot take you with us. As the positions of the comrades are no ideal places to seek safety". But that answer did not satisfy me at all and so I said: "And why are the comrades building their positions at unsafe locations?" That female guerrilla replied: "You know, out of fear the enemy does not know what to do anymore, they strike every place with such unmoral attacks. To tell the truth, the positions of the comrades are in fact very safe, they are locked in the embracement of their soil. But the enemy has gone mad and lunatic from sheer fear."

With those words of the female guerrilla I finally realised that she was talking about a cemetery. When she said with that different way of excitement and mirth that they would go and pay a visit to the comrades, I never thought she might be talking about a Martyr's Cemetery.

In the end, I insisted and persisted so much that they eventually let me accompany them to the cemetery. The guerrillas are showing a different way of respect towards life, companionship and their values. Respect is very important for them. In these living environments the value and blessedness of life is challenging much attention in any case. As our way stretched out for a long time, we had no idea how we finally reached the Martyr's Cemetery.

On our arrival at the Martyr's Cemetery all guerrillas removed the scarf they use to tighten around their heads, entered the site very formally and greeted their comrades. To be honest, this really impressed me. The guerrillas greeted from the entrance until the very last row every single one of their comrades and visited their graves. I wanted to grasp many of the approaches of the guerrillas that I noticed. But those words of theirs, that came from the depth of their hearts and were told to their comrades with the expressions in their eyes, are difficult to be understood by men. I became their spectator, and still I do not know how truly I grasped what I saw. I did not want to reduce myself to a spectator. To understand, one needs to feel it and share their feelings. Yet what I definitively understood was that the comradeship within the PKK meant an honourable and conscientious comradeship of free humans.

The female guerrilla, who asked me to stay unnamed and did not want me to take her picture either, said to me: "You know, when I come to the comrades a very different sort of ease fills my soul. Whenever I am with the comrades, I feel very easy and light. It is not only a feeling, I become in fact like that."

Their entire activities and approaches caught my eyes. Especially when they stroke with their palms softly over the tombs of their comrades, that moment was the instant no word, sentence and tongue could ever compete with. That moment dandled everything in its arms. They touch the tombs of their comrades softly with their hands and without moving their lips nor uttering any sound, they speak to their comrades with the expressions in their eyes and with their profound souls. What have they told their comrades I wonder, what words could remain hidden in their hearts? What was it they longed for, what were those words that rested in their hearts, what was it they wished for all those years? I could not make it out, as the only ones that know the answers to it are those hands, eyes and hearts of these guerrillas who are sitting next to the graves of their martyrs and are living with them every moment of life. Those hands, that smoothed the earth on their comrades' graves and are caressing them, know the answer. Yes, it is them who know the answer, those who lost a part of their lives yet still get infused by this lost part with energy, growth and increase their wrath.

There were many moments we left to silence, there were many moments in which we hearkened to their memories...But there were also many moments in which they overwhelmed us and took us with them...

I witnessed in their eyes two things that nourish them and make them grow with their values, but which aside from themselves no one really can understand. The first thing is the pain which they live through with respect to their comrades, but at the same time it is this pain that strengthens their hearts and toughens their belief. The second thing is that the pain they feel nurtures their hatred, contempt and wrath. It was that hatred that made the pupils of their eyes widen. But for the strong belief they are living, there are no words capable of describing it...Because some simple words can do no justice...