Every year, the citizens of Amûdê commemorate the victims of the massacre at the Cinema Martyrs Park, which is built on the site of the massacre.

Dozens of residents, children from the neighborhood and representatives of institutions gathered in the Cinema Martyrs Park to commemorate those who were killed in the massacre.

The ceremony was organized by the Amûdê district council and the Mesopotamia Democratic Culture and Art Movement and Children's Art Committee.

The Cinema Amûdê fire

The cinema fire in Amûdê is one of those stories that have become deeply embedded in the memory of Kurdish society. It was November 13, 1960, when hundreds of schoolchildren were forced to watch the Egyptian film "The Midnight Spirit" (Chabah nisf al-layl) on a Sunday in the only cinema in the town in northeastern Syria, the Şehrazad Film House. At the time, the Ba'athist regime had ordered a "week of solidarity" with Algeria's struggle for independence from France and was collecting donations for the "Algerian brothers." In Amûdê, therefore, all students had to go to the cinema, for an entrance fee of thirty piasters.

The film had already been shown several times, and each time the cinema was overcrowded. Actually, it had a maximum of 200 seats on about 130 square meters, but on that day 61 years ago, far more than 400 children sat in the auditorium. Their eyes were staring at the screen, over which a horror film from 1947 flickered, when after a short time it was far too bright. But the brightness was no longer coming from the projector, but from a fire. The flames quickly spread to the wooden roof truss of the hut-like building, which was covered with straw and mud. Within a very short time, the entire movie theater was on fire. Panic broke out as the children tried to reach the exits. However, there were only two narrow doors available, which could only be opened inwards. 282 children between the ages of eight and fourteen died an agonizing death.

Whether the fire was organized by the regime - two Syrian soldiers stood guard at the entrance to the cinema - or overheating due to overuse caused the film's player to suddenly burst into flames is still the subject of speculation today. But the fact that the regime authorities ignored the indications about the fire danger and insisted on the continuation of the film screenings, that not a single teacher was in the hall on the day of the fire and that even the children of the regime officials had not come to watch Midnight Spirit, that the tragedy was never investigated by the Syrian regime, leads many people to this day to assume that the cinema fire in Amûdê was a targeted and deliberate massacre. This is because discrimination against Kurdish culture and language was part of state policy in Syria; political activities were suppressed by force by the regime.