Just off of Atatürk Boulevard, one of the city of Eskişehir’s main thoroughfares, lies a tidy park dedicated to Uğur Mumcu, an investigative journalist who was killed in a car bombing outside his Ankara home in 1993. The wreckage of that car, raised on a marble pedestal and preserved under glass, serves as the park’s centerpiece. The pedestal features a quote from Mumcu urging us not to forget victims of political violence. It comes from his 1975 poem “Sesleniş,” which honors the sacrifices of Turkish leftist youth.
Mumcu’s murder remains unsolved, although many groups have been blamed or implicated, including MİT (Turkish Intelligence), the CIA, Mossad, and Iran. After the incident, the car remained in the custody of the police for 20 years, following which it was released to the victim’s family. With their permission, and with the backing of the municipality and a local group of journalists, it made the 124-mile (200 km) journey to Eskişehir and was first displayed in the park in 2016.
At the park’s front entrance, a massive two-sided mosaic/photo collage depicts the journalist’s face surrounded by newspaper headlines reacting to his death. At the other end sits a restaurant which offers a somber view of the memorial from a glass-enclosed patio.
