In Switzerland, the Fédération libertaire des Montagnes commemorated internationalist Ivana Hoffmann, who had joined the defence of Rojava and died eight years ago today in the fight against ISIS.
The ‘Fédération libertaire des Montagnes’ has commemorated internationalist Ivana Hoffmann in Switzerland with a banner drop. The female internationalist from Germany, known to many people within the Kurdish community by her nom de guerre Avaşîn Tekoşîn Güneş, fought in Rojava alongside the YPJ (Women's Defence Units) against ISIS. On 7 March 2015, she fell at the age of 19 in the fight for Til Temir. She is considered the first German and the first foreign woman to die in Rojava in the resistance against ISIS.
The memorial action for Ivana Hoffmann took place in the village of Les Brenets in the Neuchâtel Jura. Activists of the ‘Fédération libertaire des Montagnes’, an association of internationalist, libertarian and anarchist groups that sees itself in the 150-year tradition of Jura anarchism and propagates anti-authoritarian self-management, class struggle and building counter-power in order to encourage people to shape their everyday lives themselves, came together for the action at the Saut du Doubs waterfall and unfurled a large banner. On the banner was the portrait of Hoffmann, a sign of MLKP, which Hoffmann had joined in Rojava, and the sentence "In our hearts, in our struggles". The banner drop was accompanied by pyro smoke in the colours pink and orange.
"Ivana is a symbol of internationalist solidarity. We remember her with a heart full of gratitude and admiration and the fire of resistance that she lit. We will combine Ivana's ideals and struggle with our struggles and take them to the world," said the Fédération libertaire des Montagnes.
