Doğan Kardeş magazine
In 1939, a ten-year-old boy was sent from Turkey to a private international school in a small town at the foot of the Alps in Switzerland for boarding education. An avalanche fell on the students during a picnic trip at the school. Exactly 28 students lost their lives. The bodies of two of these children were never found; that boy sent from Turkey and the Swiss Dapio. The father never forgave himself for sending his ten-year-old son abroad for education until his last breath in 1991. For his son, who was buried under the avalanche and has not been found to this day, he had a statue of a child with his hands outstretched towards the Alps built at the location of the incident in the town of Films in Switzerland. He named the apartment building he bought in Beyoğlu after his son; Doğan Apartment. In memory of his deceased son, he had a children's magazine published in Turkey that would be read with interest for 3 generations; Doğan Kardeş. Because the name of this beautiful-faced 10-year-old child, who was buried under an avalanche in 1939 and still hasn’t been found, was “Doğan”. This sorrowful and regretful father was Kazım Taşkent, the founder of Yapı Kredi Bankası. DOĞAN KARDEŞ, published intermittently between 1945-1993, was a children’s magazine that added serious value to the education and socialization of hundreds of thousands of children including Suna Kan, İdil Biret, Müjdat Gezen. These were years when there were no cell phones, no internet, no television, no radio. Young people don’t know, but our generation knows Doğan Kardeş Magazine very well. I didn’t know its story, I learned it yesterday, it hurt. And I felt like writing the following lines: If one day you find yourself in the Alps, Bend down and smell a wildflower on the ground. But don’t pick it. Then look up at the sky, Maybe a tiny smile passes over the clouds, Like the smile of a born child. Quote
