Femicide in Zurich-Altstetten: This is how the district lives on
Janina Bauer (text) and Lea Ernst (photos)
On the evening of October 13, 2021, Annelies* (85) was woken up by a scream. At first she thinks it’s a noise coming from the TV. She had fallen asleep on the couch. But it’s not the television, it sounds different: “Like a death scream!” Annelies goes to her balcony on the first floor, looks down and sees her neighbor Ayla* († 30). She is lying in the bushes next to the entrance to the house, only her legs can be seen from her body. Her husband Serdar* (46) lies next to her. Suddenly he jumps up, runs and disappears behind the corner of the house. Ayla remains motionless in the bushes. Annelies is one of the last people she sees alive.
In the middle of the Bändli district in Zurich-Altstetten. Neighbors witness. The alleged perpetrator, Ayla’s husband, turned himself in to the city police that same night, seriously injured. He has been on the investigative body ever since. The two live separately before the crime. A lawsuit was pending against him for threatening his wife. On the day of the crime, a rayon ban was imposed on him to keep him away from her.
Ayla leaves behind two small children.
How does life continue in a neighborhood after such a bloody crime? What does it evoke in people? The Sunday Blick magazine spoke to four women about it. Met her on and off for months. Annelies, who has lived in the neighborhood her whole life and saw how Ayla Star. Lara (22), for whom it is already the second femicide in the neighborhood. Birgit (58), who has worked at the local community center for 21 years. And Maura (29), who can neither Ayla nor her family, but becomes an activist through her death.
fear of the perpetrator
Annelies has lived all her life in the Bändli quarter in Zurich district 9, between Werdinsel and Altstetten train station. She moved into her current apartment more than 50 years ago. Since her man star, she lives alone. Ayla lived on the floor with her extended family. Although Annelies has severe hip problems, she goes for a walk every day around noon. Once she fell at the front door. Ayla was there immediately to help her up.
The old lady is now sitting at the antique dark wood dining table in her living room. She speaks of her peaceful childhood in the neighborhood. She has always felt at home here. While Annelies is talking, she looks thoughtfully out of the living room window. “Everything from here to the Limmat used to be Ried. There are even sheep grazing across from the house.» Then the neighborhood changes. It is being built, idyll becomes affordable living space. Zurich’s working-class district is transforming into a multicultural district. “It was unusual at the beginning. The many foreigners live differently, are louder.” They offer little contact with their fellow human beings, the language barrier prevents them from doing so. Many do not speak German. But Annelies got used to it. “The neighbors are very friendly and helpful.”
After Ayla’s death, Annelies no longer feels safe in her neighborhood for the first time. For the first few days after the crime, she locks herself up at home, with the windows closed and the shutters down. The reason: One day before the killing, she met Serdar in the local shop. He, with whom she had never exchanged more than a Grüezi and Ade in more than ten years, approached her there. “I want the children and the apartment,” he is said to have said. Then he turned around and disappeared. After the deed, Annelies is afraid he may return. Only when the police assured her on the phone that the man was in custody did she go out again. Her fear fades, as does the bloodstain on the doorstep. Only the death scream that woke her up on October 13 still reverberated three months later.
On a Wednesday evening, two weeks after Ayla’s death, around 100 women and children gather at the fountain in front of the neighborhood shop. Men can only be seen occasionally. There is an improvised altar in front of a tree, with a photo of Ayla on it. Lit by the candlelight, her delicate face can be seen. At some point Maura steps up to the microphone. She gives the first speech at the funeral service, another local resident translates into Turkish. “We have to be there for each other as a neighborhood,” she says. And: “Intervene!”
fight against femicide
A few weeks later, Maura is sitting at her dining table. At her feet lies the dog Joey, her constant companion. “I often think of Ayla. Her death was only a few weeks ago and it still seems like nothing happened, »she says. Ayla’s picture, which stood on the altar by the fountain for some time after the funeral service, has now disappeared. Separation, a report to the police and a district ban – Ayla had fought against her husband with all means. But it wasn’t enough. Could an arrest have prevented the crime? Could the neighbors have done something? Maura’s voice trembles with anger. “We can probably no longer leave women affected by domestic violence alone!”
Maura has experienced sexual and physical violence before – personally and in her immediate environment. “It was only Ayla’s death that really shook me up.” Even if she knew neither the deceased nor her family. Just a few blocks away, a woman of the same age died horribly. A shock that then turned into bewilderment. “I couldn’t understand why things would just go on like this. Why isn’t there an outcry in the neighborhood?” Maura takes part in a protest by the Ni-una-menos Zurich organization, which fights against femicide. Femicide is the killing of women and girls because of their gender. Murder in the name of honour, murder for false claims of ownership, murder because separation is unacceptable. On the other hand fights against Maura. She has joined Ni-una-menos.
Lara (22) stands in her kitchen and boils water for tea. Her three cats stroke her legs, purring. One of them jumps onto the windowsill. Lara takes it down, looks out. From there she can look directly at the crime scene.
She is standing in the same place on the evening of October 13th and fears for the life of the person whose body the paramedics are trying to revive for over 30 minutes. She doesn’t get anything from the fact itself.
For the first few days after Ayla’s death, Lara doesn’t leave the house. She is afraid to walk past the scene of the crime. “For me it’s about respect. That’s the sidewalk, I thought. Nobody should just die like that. I couldn’t accept that everything would go on as normal.” Now she’s going there again. But never without thinking about Ayla.
«An emancipating woman»
At the small memorial in front of the house there are pictures, painted stones, a chain. And a letter. “Dear mommy,” it says, “I missed you very much. You are a very nice mom. You are so beautiful.” Ayla was one of the few mothers who took care of the neighboring children who were playing in the surrounding houses, says Lara. “One time she brought out a whole box of sandwiches for all the kids.” The two women also came into contact through the children, with whom Lara played from time to time. “Ayla had a very personable charisma. She seemed to me like a modern, emancipating woman who was happy to seek exchange.” When Lara found out about the separation at some point, she was happy for Ayla. “She seemed liberated.” The two as a couple never understood Lara anyway. Ayla, the outgoing and pretty young woman. And Serdar, considerably older, grim and uninterested.
Ayla’s death is the second femicide that happened in Lara’s immediate neighborhood. She spent her childhood in Zurich-Höngg, on the other side of the river. When she was ten, her neighbor killed his 16-year-old daughter with an ax. An experience that Lara embossed hat. “My credo is: It’s better to get more help than too little.” Since she moved to the Bändli district across from Annelies and Ayla two years ago, she has called the police four to five times. Once, loud noises came from a couple’s apartment in their house for hours. “Screams and thuds, as if someone or something were thrown against a wall.” When Lara left her apartment to check on things, she wasn’t the only one. The whole house knew what was going on, but no one intervened. “I suspect that many look the other way because they are culturally used to more domestic violence and that it is a private matter,” says Lara.
To this day, Birgit does not dare to go to the spot where Ayla died. “Speechless. Shocked. Taken away,” she said in detail about her reaction to her death. In the 21 years that she has been working in the community center in socio-cultural neighborhood work, nothing comparable has happened. They always suspect that domestic violence occurs in the neighborhood. However, it is difficult to do anything about it. “Many do not speak German well. The inhibition to get help is greater. Maybe it’s ignorance.” From a purely cultural point of view, many of the communities in the neighborhood are characterized by a “non-interference mentality”. Ayla never spoke of violence in their relationship either. She only expresses her wish to separate to Birgit. The two met in the community center café.
Birgit is now preparing tea there before taking a seat at a table in a separate room. She warms her hands on the cup, it’s a colder November day. As she crosses the room, she greets the playing children and their mothers by name. Ayla would drop by to play with Serdar and her children from time to time. It was strange that her husband was always there, but then just sat quietly in a corner. Normally the women would rather come alone with their children. “It gave the impression that Ayla was trapped in her everyday life. As if her husband controlled her.” Sometimes she felt lonely. «Her family was in Turkey. I don’t know if she had friends here.” Ayla gladly accepted the offers in the community center. They participated in various projects. In 2019, she was the only woman from the neighborhood to take part in the big women’s strike in Zurich, together with Birgit, her colleagues and her little daughter. Birgit tells the guests about this at the funeral service. Birgit wants people to remember Ayla. “It’s important to me that something stays.”
But most people in the neighborhood want to forget. To lock. Many requests from the Sunday Blick magazine were rejected with these words. It’s a way of dealing with Ayla’s violent death. These four women choose to talk. Maura becomes an activist, Lara keeps her eyes open, Birgit will remember Ayla and Annelies silently remembers.