One in every five Polish vets has considered suicide: “I broke down on December 23rd when I had to put down nine animals in one day.”

A preliminary task: count the amount of people around you who have committed suicide in recent years.

Vets are conscientious, detail-oriented, and great at science. Calculations are a normal part of their work. 

Magda Jaszczak takes a moment to consider. One, two, three… Thirteen people, she counts. 

The first was a doctor who employed her in a clinic in northern England sixteen years ago. He was kind enough to give Magda two months to move out of a neighbouring town and organise her life in the new environment. When she moved there for good, he was already dead. Next, there were three female vets. In 2019, they passed away one by one, all within a span of three months. One of them used to be Magda’s mentor. She had just founded a thriving clinic. The second one was an internationally renowned academic teacher. She trained veterinary nurses. A few months ago, another acquaintance of Magda, a 50-year-old vet, passed away, also having committed suicide. In the Swedish town where she currently runs a clinic, a vet killed himself four years ago. Quite recently, at a hospital in a large city next door, it was a young female graduate, an intern. And so on.

Magda: “In this industry, everyone has a colleague who has died in this way, regardless of whether you work in Poland, England or Sweden.”

Natalia Strokowska, a vet working in Warsaw, says that for her, it’s three people. “Last year, it was a friend from university. She suffered from bipolar disorder. Earlier, a colleague who I helped find a job abroad. He was addicted to drugs. Oh, and a veterinary technician. He treated my guinea pig once. He had been stealing drugs, he was addicted to them. Nobody knew.”

Szymon Najdora, the owner of a veterinary clinic in Katowice, knows two people: “Four years ago, it was one of my employees. A great vet who was adored by her clients. A few hours before she had called me to ask about her vacation; she had wanted to extend it to meet a friend. At that time, we were taking care of a dog at the clinic who had had a strange accident. He was left at home with a group of children, and when the parents returned, his hind legs were paralysed. The owners left him with us. They did not want to contribute to the treatment. It was a tough experience for the entire team, but this girl was hit the hardest. She fought hard for that dog. We even got him a trolley so that he could move around. The dog is doing well now, the partner of our late colleague adopted him. 

I went to another funeral last November. She was a young, talented woman who had achieved a lot. Also around 30 years old. That’s why it hurts so much. Among my other colleagues, there have been five suicide attempts in the past few years.”

Paula Dziubińska-Bartylak is the owner of a clinic in Bydgoszcz and specializes in exotic animals, dogs and cats: “In 2020, my close friend committed suicide. A few years earlier, in the first year that I worked in Poznań, it was a female colleague who was on duty on New Year’s Eve. At another clinic, years ago, another female colleague. She tried to do it at the clinic. Our chief, who went out to consult on a horse, came back because she’d forgotten to take her equipment and medication with her. She arrived just in time. The girl was lying on the office floor, and they managed to resuscitate her. If I were to count the suicide attempts among my colleagues and close friends in the industry, I would run out of fingers.”

A few years ago in the UK, vets were asked, “If you couldn’t treat animals, what kind of profession would be an alternative for you?” Many of them filled in accounting. Magda: “Yes, it makes sense. Most of us are perfectionists, proficient in sciences. Maybe if we were dealing with figures and not animals, we wouldn’t lose so many people.”

The murderous training begins at university: veterinary medicine is one of the most difficult and demanding programs. Before the first major exam, students need to learn the anatomical systems of several species: from pigs and cows to horses, sheep, dogs and cats. You need to remember every bone name in both Polish and in Latin. And this is just the beginning. There is also mental conditioning, an aspect where students, especially female ones, learn that they are nobody.  

Natalia Strokowska is originally from Kraków. Seven years ago, she completed her course in veterinary medicine at Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW). For the first three years of the program, she alternately studied, worked, and slept. She hardly had time for private life. She spent half of her time breathing formalin fumes in the dissecting room and the other half looking through a microscope. From the very beginning, lecturers told her she wouldn’t make it. Students took to sedatives. Every now and then, someone ‘disappeared.’ They dropped out of university, took a medical leave of absence, or ended up in a psychiatric hospital. It was whispered about in the university corridors. 

Natalia also ended up consulting a psychiatrist during the third year of her studies. She received a referral for publicly-financed therapy in her hometown Kraków. She could not afford a course of private therapy in Warsaw, so every Friday she would buy a cheap ticket for a TLK train to Kraków, attend a therapy session, gather strength among her relatives and friends, and then on Monday she would return to the capital for classes. Natalia is an attractive, tall blonde woman and over time she started to earn extra money by modeling. She also took part in the Miss SGGW competition. One professor asked her, “My dear, would you prefer to become a vet or walk down the runway?” Another lecturer, infamous for his ‘weakness’ for pretty girls, handed her a note after a class inviting her to his office. A few years later, he got dismissed on a disciplinary basis. There was also another professor who liked to lean against female students under the pretext of peering into the microscope from behind their backs. He flunked Natalia by a quarter-point, forcing her to resit exams in the September session. At the end, he commented, “I hope this time you can demonstrate your abilities.” He currently teaches at another university.

Today, Natalia is completing her PhD thesis and is a lecturer herself. She notes that some of her students are no longer capable of even hiding signs of self-harm. Natalia sees the suffering in their pale, tired, grey faces. She is able to guess their condition by looking at the pulled-down sleeves of their jerseys. And although the current authorities at her university are aware of the importance of the mental health of future vets, the measures taken are just a drop in the ocean of their needs.

Natalia: “The profile of a veterinary surgeon has changed during the last thirty years. Until the 1990s, the profession was dominated by men who treated farm animals. Today, there is a demand for the treatment of pets, and it’s mostly women who want to study veterinary medicine. They often have a strong sense of purpose, they love animals and want to save them. Then, once they’re at university, they bump into old-school lecturers who sometimes openly show their disrespect. There is an unwritten rule of ‘survival of the strongest.’ In my class, after the first two semesters, the drop-out rate was 40%. In the following years, we were joined by the so-called “parachutists,” those who ended up a class down to repeat a year. The record-holder in my class repeated his year three times, he was several years older than us.” 

Magda graduated from Warsaw University of Life Sciences 16 years ago. “After the third year, I had a mental breakdown and took a leave of absence. Mobbing was ubiquitous at the Faculty. Any pretext was good enough for the lecturers to flunk a student at the exam. One of the lecturers derided me for having red hair. I got a diploma with a mere Pass. When I did my specialisation course in England, I graduated with honours.”

In England, Magda became involved in the activities of Vetlife Charity, which runs a helpline for vets and veterinary students. “In England, they see changes similar to those occurring in Poland. There, the 50-year-old vets in checked shirts and dirty gloves are being replaced by the so-called “pony girls,” the daughters of wealthy parents who loved their ponies so much that they decided to study veterinary medicine. Then, when such a “ponygirl” is confronted with reality, she experiences shock. They are often perfectionists, slim, flawless women wearing well-fitting clothes who, unlike their older colleagues, do not take to drink but suffer from anorexia or torture their bodies in gyms. While I was working at the charity, we received about 20 emails a day from male and female vets. They wrote about self-harm, anorexia, depression, suicidal thoughts, and problems with their clients and bosses. Our task was to offer them support, which included referring them to an appropriate therapist.”

Paula: “The word ‘leisure’ was removed from my vocabulary when I was first started studying veterinary medicine. The amount of work you have to put in is shocking: the treadmill never stops, you have to give it 120% all the time. There were times when I would go to sleep in my day clothes which I came home from uni and then I would wear them the entire following day. I didn’t want to waste time changing my clothes, I would rather study. Studying veterinary medicine, I learned to reduce my own needs to zero.’

Szymon: “I don’t have bad memories from my studies in Katowice. But I did see the pressure that the female students faced. Derision from the lecturers and claims that there is no place for women in the profession was a daily occurrence. The women had to work a lot harder than the men to achieve the same results.”

If there existed a survival manual for vets, the first chapter would be about the university and might end with something like this: “So you have survived university and believe that it will get only better from now on, huh? You don’t even realize how wrong you are.” Szymon: “Maybe if someone told us right away in the first year that this job is not really about animals only, then we wouldn’t have to attend so many of our colleagues’ funerals.”  

Survival Manual, Chapter Two: “You will barely make ends meet and you’ll be considered a rip-off merchant.”

It’s 2014 and Natalia’s just started her first job at a clinic near Warsaw. The boss mentally abuses doctors and 17 employees pass through the clinic in three years. Natalia’s earnings: PLN 980 handed over in an envelope, no social security. Natalia models on the side so she can get by. When she receives her doctoral scholarship, she reaches 2,000 zlotys a month. For several months she passes through various veterinary clinics in Warsaw where she is employed illegally or part-time. In 2015, she registers as a freelancer and starts teaching Medical English. The doctoral scholarship is spent paying the social security contributions, a bookkeeping service provider and a room at a dormitory. She also gets her first contract for doing on-duty jobs at British clinics. After a few years, she finds jobs in Sweden. This is the first time she sees any savings in her account. 

Sedlak & Sedlak’s report shows that the average net salary of a veterinary surgeon in Poland is PLN 2,900. The research conducted by the company Natalia works for (Vetnolimits) in 2018 shows that more than a half of Polish veterinary surgeons have financial problems.

Natalia: “People often consider a vet to be a rip-off merchant basking in luxury. The reality couldn’t be more different. The wealthy ones are the clinic owners who have worked for their position over the years or the vets that take care of large-scale industrial herds. Single-vet surgeries or small clinics often barely get by. Clients require services at the level of human medicine, so vets go into debt buying very expensive equipment like ultrasound scanners, X-ray scanners and tomographs. Products that amount to hundreds of thousands or even millions of zlotys of credit. On top of that, there are the costs of specialisation courses and life-long training, which we pay for ourselves. And our clients are not always willing to pay for the service delivered. What if the animal does not wake up from anaesthesia after surgery or dies despite our attempts to save it? Has the service been delivered or not? Some think it hasn’t been and are prepared to fight to prove they’re right. I hear from other vets that uncollected bills for veterinary treatment may even exceed 50,000 zlotys.”

Szymon: “People buy a pet at a pet store for 50 zlotys and expect its medical treatment to cost more or less that amount. They are shocked when they learn that a surgical procedure will cost them several hundred zlotys. They raise hell, they insult us. Sometimes clients who cannot afford treatment leave their pet, for instance, a rabbit, with us and then we pass the animal on to charities. This is not a good thing because it teaches people that what is broken can be left behind. Several times a year, we also find animals in serious condition abandoned at the door of our clinic. That’s why I believe that having an animal should be a privilege. A luxury.”

Survival Manual, Chapter Three: “You have no idea what extreme despair or extreme rage truly mean.”

Natalia remembers a woman nine months pregnant who came in to have her old dog examined. An ultrasound examination showed that the animal had a giant, bleeding tumour on its spleen. The owner howled in shock and despair and fell to the floor. She lay with the dog for a dozen or so minutes and wept, holding her pregnant belly. Her mother was sitting next to her, also crying. Natalia sat down next to them and held their hands until they calmed down.

Paula: “When an animal dies during surgery, people can roll on the ground and shout, “It can’t be true! It is not possible!” On such occasions, I don’t know what to do. Go out? Lie down next to them and comfort them? I definitely cannot say, “Please pull yourself together and take a seat.” During our studies, no one prepared us for what it would be like to work with people. We never had psychology classes. At the beginning of my career, I didn’t feel equipped to inform clients about the death of their pets. I would dial the number and hang up because I was crying. Finally, there is also the question of the bill. I might forgo my own remuneration, but what about the cost of the procedure? The fee of the anaesthetist who will send me an invoice?” 

The despair of clients is sometimes paired with aggression. 

Five years ago, Szymon consulted a client about his dog. The animal weighed 10 kilos, half of its intended weight. The dog was vomiting violently, it had a tumour that covered almost half of its leg and a few airgun pellets in its body. The owner reluctantly agreed to euthanasia. Later on, he gave Szymon a single-star internet rating with a comment: “If I hadn’t chosen that particular vet, the dog would probably be alive today.” Szymon: “Not a week goes by without me being called a quack and a murderer. Over time, you’re supposed to become immune to such things, but when someone leaves crying out, “We’ll burn this shack of yours to the ground!”, your skin crawls. The worst part is that these aggressive owners often cause their pets’ fatal conditions themselves. We recently had a rabbit with an enormous tumour on its testicle, decayed teeth, a stone in the urethra, a broken leg, and a tangle of fur and dried faeces. The owner looked straight into my eyes and said, “He was fine yesterday.” He tried to pass on the responsibility for the pet’s condition to me.”

Paula feels like she has already heard everything out there. She was called a “heartless murderess,” and one client threatened to kill her child. There were also those who announced that they would destroy her or “fight her until she broke.” 

She also had cases like this one. A dog already has heavy dyspnoea but the client doesn’t agree to euthanasia because she wants the pet to die at home. It will be in agony for two days because “the owner loves it so much.” Paula questions this love. Because if the owner did love the dog, why didn’t she seek medical treatment for the dog six months earlier instead of waiting for the tumour to drag over the ground, decay and eventually rot? Paula sees multiple cases of such neglect every week: “Most of these animals could have been cured. As it is, instead of curing them, I have to euthanise them or watch their human take them home, thus condemning them to more torment. How am I supposed to recover from something like this?”

At the other extreme, there are clients who are not going to let go. Even now, Paula can remember an old cat with kidney failure whose owners kept dragging it from one specialist to another for a year. They spent thousands on its prolonged death: more pumps, more nasoesophageal probes, more nasopharyngeal tubes and drips. The cat was as good as dead. Paula recalls it spread on the examination table like a wet cloth, surrounded by cables and IV drops and tormented by suffering. Paula couldn’t do a thing. The owner can do what they like in this situation. If they want the animal to suffer at home unattended, no one can stop them. But if they are willing to spend tens of thousands on persistent therapy, the vet is equally helpless. The common denominator of both situations is suffering. The kind of death that Paula would not wish on any human being.

Paula: “Desperate people are capable of anything. Why did no one teach us at the university how to talk to them?”

Natalia: “We shepherd our clients through powerful crises even though we don’t have any psychological training to help us to do so. We do it intuitively, at the price of our own sanity. Over time, some cut themselves off from their own emotions in order to survive. It even has a name: “compassion fatigue.” Emotional exhaustion is caused by your own compassion. But if you’ve stopped feeling anything, it means it’s high time to consider changing your profession. 

In January 2019, the US CDC (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention) published the first large-scale study on mortality rates among American vets. The results were alarming: in male vets, the probability of suicide turned out to be more than twice as high as in the general population; for female vets, this factor is as much as 3.5 times. Research has also shown that vets specialising in the treatment of pets are at the highest risk of death by suicide.

Researchers try to explain these statistics by referring to the specific working conditions of vets: working overtime, poor work-life balance, the growing demands of clients, and the necessity of performing euthanasia – not only in old and sick animals but also in those neglected by their owners. 

But that’s not all. Research done in both the USA and the UK shows that veterinary medicine attracts people of a specific personality type: conscientious, empathetic perfectionists. These traits in themselves can contribute to the development of mental disorders resulting from high levels of stress, and when we add in extreme working conditions, this creates a perfect storm – a combination of circumstances in which tragedy comes easy. The issue of money is also important. Most veterinary medicine graduates leave university with massive debt that they have to pay back over the following years.

In Poland, no statistics similar to the American ones have been collected, but there are many signs that the problem is universal and exists in most European countries. The research of Natalia Strokowska shows that one in every five Polish vets has considered suicide, and 4% of vets have frequent suicidal thoughts. In addition, they suffer from addiction, mostly alcohol and drugs, from financial problems, working overtime, low levels of job satisfaction and disturbed family relationships.

Survival Manual, Chapter Four: “You will see more suffering than you can bear.”

Szymon: “There are happy moments, but in general this is a so-called disaster industry.”

Natalia: “I was devastated by a recent shift during which I put down a dog.”

And it was not so much this single death, but the endless loop: life, death, life, death. The euthanised dog’s owners wanted the presence of a tumour confirmed by post-mortem examination. Natalia carried the dog over to the examination table and opened its stomach. While her hands were inside its still-warm body, the receptionist burst into the room, “You need to hurry up, there’s a client coming with a kitten to be vaccinated.” Natalia put away the liver containing the tumour, took off her gloves, disinfected her hands, and stretched her mouth with a professional smile. It’s a joy to meet a new family member. You need to admire it, stroke it tenderly, and enjoy its arrival together with your client. But your thoughts are elsewhere. They’re next door, with the body of the dog that an hour ago was still very much alive. For which someone is mourning. The client with the kitten left, and Natalia came back to the other room to close the dog’s body. She could not swallow her lunch. Within minutes, she would be performing another planned euthanasia.

Magda: “In England, where I worked for 13 years, I once had to put down a pregnant bitch together with her entire, as-of-yet unborn litter. The client could not afford a caesarean. The bitch was in bad shape and she probably wouldn’t have survived the surgery; despite that, this euthanasia was one of the worst ones for me. In my own clinic, I could have let the client pay for the caesarean in instalments, but it was a veterinary corporation, so I didn’t have that option. The clinic owners only took care of the bottom line. The killing was on me.”

Paula describes her last working day. First, patient number one dies – a rabbit brought in by the owner two days too late. On Saturday, the man sent an email to the clinic, in which he said that the animal refused to eat. He was told to bring the rabbit in immediately. He wrote back that maybe he would find time on Sunday afternoon. He didn’t. He brought in the extremely dehydrated rabbit on Monday. The fight for its life began immediately because the animal no longer had the swallowing reflex. By Tuesday morning, the rabbit was dead. During the post-mortem examination, it turned out that the ulcers had perforated its stomach wall and all the undigested content had spilt into its belly. Patient number two: a guinea pig that suffered from pneumonia. Paula had been fighting for it for months, but on that day, despite resuscitation, the guinea pig died. Patient number three: a rabbit with gastric dilatation. It might survive. 

Paula: “Don’t forget to mention that this was, in theory,  my day off. I just drove over to the clinic to help the girls who just couldn’t handle so many emergency patients.”

Magda: “I broke down on the day on which I had to perform nine euthanasia procedures. It was on the 23rd of December, a date known to vets all over the world as the ‘holiday cleaning’ day.

Paula: “In Poland, we call it the “warehouse clearance.’”

Magda: “In England, we would put down the biggest amount of animals before Christmas Eve. They were mostly old dogs, often in poor condition. However, with a little push, they could live a little longer. But the thing is that an old, deaf dog with a smelly muzzle is hardly attractive to Christmas guests. Especially when a breeder is already waiting for a new puppy to be collected. Pre-Christmas euthanasia procedures are interspersed with vaccinations of puppies. It hits your psyche. The more so because neither in England nor in Sweden am I entitled to refuse to perform euthanasia. There, everything can qualify as persistent therapy and for that, I can be sued.’

Paula mentions that before Christmas Eve, the owners try everything to persuade her to perform euthanasia. “He’s definitely going to get worse during Christmas,” is one claim clients often make. In such situations, she says that her decision depends on the outcome of the clinical examination. If she finds the dog to be in very bad shape, she agrees. After all, this is a final act of mercy towards the dog. Since the owner had done nothing for the dog for ten years, they could just as well have taken it out to the forest and abandoned it there before Christmas. Instead, they brought the animal to her. If the dog is not in a desperate condition, Paula informs the client that it needs medical treatment. Some clients take offence and leave. Others change their mind. 

Paula: “I once had a client whom I told that her dog needed a blood test. She looked at me in shocked disbelief, “How’s that? A dog has blood?” I try not to get upset with such things. When I bought my first car, I had no idea that the engine oil needed to be changed at times. The mechanic looked at me with pity. Some people have a similar approach to buying a dog. Then I try and educate them and sometimes I see a change: suddenly they start taking good care of the animal, buy specialist food, and order the most expensive tests. Such miracles also happen.”

Magda took a medical leave after the ‘holiday cleaning.’ The family doctor she saw couldn’t understand what her problem was: Do you have debts? Family problems? Are you in danger of losing your job? Magda shook her head. No, the point was that within a single day she took nine lives. The doctor shrugged and gave her a referral to a psychologist. The therapist was young, a recent graduate. She couldn’t bear to listen to Magda’s story.

Magda: “That’s why we screened the psychologists we employed at the Vetlife Charity. Vets had repeatedly complained that the therapists in England didn’t view them as patients but rather saw them as professionals. Some of them went as far as taking out their phones mid-way of a therapeutic session to present pictures of their own dogs. Or they would ask, “Okay, so which anthelmintic is the most effective in your opinion?”’ 

Chapter Five: “There will always be someone to say you haven’t done enough.”

Natalia: “We often face painful dilemmas. For instance: the animal could be cured, but the owner cannot afford to pay for the treatment. I feel like crying when I read the criticism on the Internet that says that we should save such animals at our own expense because being a vet is a mission in and of itself. My reply would be: Do doctors adopt babies found in baby hatches? Do dentists take pity on the homeless who hang out in front of their offices and put tooth crowns in or give them root canal treatment for free? Because we, vets, constantly pick up injured birds, cat litters, tormented dogs or puppies stuck in boxes at our clinic doors. And we treat them, often for free, and find them new homes. But to many people, especially those who comment anonymously on the internet, this is still isn’t enough.”

Paula: “Not long ago, I had a client whose rabbit did not wake up from anaesthesia after surgery. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, I warned the owner beforehand about how this sometimes happens. Despite this, the woman could not believe it had happened. She sat down in my office and, in tears, demanded an explanation. Meanwhile, clinic employees were calling other owners to say that their pets’ surgeries would be delayed. “So what the hell are you doing there all day?” a client waiting for his rabbit to get castrated shouted. That day, we called it a day at one in the morning. It’s impossible to please everybody.”

Chapter Six: “Save yourself.”

Paula: “I’m not tired of my own compassion, I’m tired of death.”

For Paula, the need to keep jumping from mourning to joy and back is similar to bipolar disorder. In 2020, she felt that none of the versions of herself was real. Not one who comforts distraught clients, nor the one who expresses happiness about having cured a dog’s lymphoma. Arriving home from work, she would stare at the wall and feel nothing. She had the impression that she was made of cardboard: clean, without any feelings, perfectly indifferent. And this is where it gets dangerous. It doesn’t matter to a ‘cardboard person’ whether they live or die. When her close friend committed suicide, the thought crossed her mind that ‘just one step and we can be together again.’

Paula: ‘Our entire industry is steeped in dying. To us, death seems a simple and perfect solution. After all, we know everything about it. We are getting accustomed to it every day. This way of thinking is extremely dangerous.’

This year, Paula decided: “Enough is enough. I need help.” She started therapy and also attends classes with a coach to better cope with the management of the clinic. She does it both for herself and for her little daughter. The ‘new Paula’ tries to turn the phone off and reminds herself that she cannot help everyone. The ‘old Paula’ goes to the clinic even on vacation and sometimes doesn’t come back home for three days in a row, sleeping at the office. That’s how she is: someone else’s suffering torments her. As long as it’s possible for her to reduce it to a manageable level, she keeps working. She feels pity for both animals and people, even when the latter’s ignorance or neglect infuriates when. 

Magda has set up her own clinic in Sweden. She’s also become involved in creating the country’s first charity to support vets with mental health problems. For Swedes, who don’t like to speak out about uncomfortable problems or emotions, this is a novelty.

Szymon says that he has therapeutic support available at home because his partner is a psychologist. And when he notices that a client is unable to cope with a pet’s death, he discreetly hands over her business card.

Natalia Strokowska has founded her Vetnolimits company where she offers mentoring and professional support to vets. Not long ago, together with Halszka Witkowska, a suicidologist, she talked about the risk of suicide in her profession at a virtual Congress of Polish Psychiatrists. Several hundred psychiatrists listened to her speak. 

She talks a lot about mental health with her students. Natalia: “This is a generation that is different from mine. They are not ashamed to talk about what hurts them. For them, consulting a psychiatrist or a psychologist is not a reason to feel ashamed but a logical solution when the realities in their life become too difficult. They thank me every time I tell them about my own experiences because it makes them feel less alone. This does not mean, however, that the call for systemic changes should be stopped. First of all, the ways in which vets are trained has to be changed. In order to prevent tragedies, students should learn something about psychology, ethics, and mechanisms of coping with difficult situations during their university years. One thing will not change for sure: this profession will always attract people who are exceptionally sensitive and empathetic beyond compare. We must not let them be destroyed.”

Loosening the stake

Once upon a time, when passing a desolate village, the saint meets “the devil.” He asks him, “Which family are you going to break up now?” The devil says, “I am on my way, I have no intention of doing that”, and enters the village. In the village, he sees a calf that cannot reach its mother because its leash is tied to a stake. He carefully loosens the calf’s stake and looks on to see what will happen. The calf pulls out the stake and runs to its mother. The woman milking the cow gets angry and throws a stone at the calf’s head. Seeing the baby cow die, her husband gets angry and throws a stone at the woman’s head. She dies, too. The woman’s relatives come and begin to slaughter the man and the man’s relatives begin to slaughter them. Having seen all this, the saint looks at the devil and says, “You did it again.” The devil answers “What did I do? I just loosened the stake.” He shrugs his shoulders and goes on his way.

Both AKP, aware that it is performing its final act, and those who disguise their racism towards refugees as anti-AKP sentiment, have been busy loosening the stake for a long time. The stake was further loosened in Ankara-Altındağ on August 11 when, as the police of the regime looked on as “spectators”, a pogrom broke out against Syrians.

Battalgazi is a neighbourhood with a population of 50,000 located in the Altındağ district of Ankara, five or six kilometres from the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and a few bus stops from Kızılay, the centre of the city. Here, on August 10, some young refugees playing on sports equipment at the park were picked on by another group of youths for apparently made-up reasons. 18-year-old Emirhan Yalçın allegedly warned the Syrian youngsters, “don’t damage the equipment,” and was then stabbed and seriously wounded. After he was taken to hospital, the incident was used as justification for an attack on refugees, first in the neighbourhood and later by racist social-media accounts.

Huge photographs of Emirhan Yalçın, who was killed by August 10, were on the streets of Altındağ for weeks. (Photo: İrfan Aktan)

The next day, when the news of Yalçın’s death came out, violent groups looted and set ablaze the houses and workplaces of Syrians. The police not only stood by throughout the night but also prompted the attackers to go to certain places, as seen in videos posted on social media.

 One colleague of ours arrived in the neighbourhood just before the attacks started and has asked to remain anonymous because he could not obtain permission from his organization to make a statement. According to his account, “there were about 500 police officers on duty and they were not letting anyone into the neighbourhood, particularly journalists – I was able to get in by hiding in the muhtar’s, the neighbourhood administrator’s car.” In other words, even though everyone, including the police, knew that a mass attack was about to take place on the evening of August 11, the only precaution taken was to prevent journalists from entering the neighbourhood. “While we were talking to locals during the day, young people said ‘We are waiting for people to finish their shift and come back.’ The groups, who were already prepared when they received the news of the death, mobilized around the early evening, chanting Allahu Akbar.”

“They are the excluded people of Syria”

On the night of the attack, many social media users claiming to live in Battalgazi were posting messages that “the attackers came from outside, they do not live in our neighbourhood,” but witnesses say that is not the case. Two weeks after the incident, on August 27, we met Battalgazi’s neighbourhood administrator, or muhtar, Habip Eroğul. His office, where the doors and windows are protected with iron bars, is located right next to the park where Emirhan Yalçın was murdered. He tells us that “all of them were locals of this neighbourhood.” Noting that there are about “seven or eight thousand” Syrians living in this fifty-thousand population neighbourhood, the muhtar says: “The way things are going, Syrians will become the majority. They might even take over the muhtar’s office in the future.”

A driving-school worker who is visiting the office for residence documents, interrupts, pointing to his red eyes: “I have an eye problem but I can’t go to a doctor. Why can’t I go? I don’t have social security. Why don’t I have it? Because if I request social security, my boss would give me the sack and employ a Syrian instead. They are employed illegally, there is no insurance cost, their salaries are less than half of ours.”

The muhtar continues: “We understand that they are the excluded people of Syria. […] Are there decent ones among them? Of course there are. No one would sleep in the homes where some of them stay. Food conditions are poor, too. By necessity, of course. Where would these people go? They cannot go to Ümitköy, Çankaya, İncek. These are rich neighbourhoods. So they came and settled in this poor neighbourhood. Only the state can solve this issue.”

When the driving-school worker asks, “You say the state will solve this, mayor, but how?” he receives the answer, “That is a matter for the state to figure out.” According to the muhtar, some Syrians left the neighbourhood after the August 11 attack. He adds that “this issue will settle down in time, they will get used to us, and we will get used to them.” The driving-school worker, again: “Your talk is fine but if these people are opposed to Assad, they should go and fight and replace the man. If they are not opposed to Assad, then they still should go back and settle in their country. These guys do not come to the mosque; they do not stand behind our imam to pray. How will it work?” The muhtar replies, “This is because of the difference of sects – we are Hanafi, they are probably Shafi’i”. He repeats, “Neither we nor Syrians can solve this issue, this can only be solved by the state.”

We walk towards Gürpınar Mosque, down Muhtar Arif Turan Street – which had been closed by hundreds of police on the night of August 11 and was still under a police blockade even though two weeks had passed. At least two watchmen were on guard in all the neighbourhood parks. When we ask directions to the mosque, one of the watchmen pointed to a group of hundreds of people, saying “follow them, they are all going to Friday prayer.” Using their prayer rugs as protection from the sun, the people walking downhill toward the mosque were silent.

Racist attackers arsoned workplaces and homes belonging to Syrians and hung Turkish flags on the windows. (Photo: Serkan Alan)

“Racism is the basis of discord”

Battalgazi is a former shantytown, adjacent to the Siteler area, home to hundreds of furniture workshops. Dilapidated gecekondu, shanty houses and hovel housing dating to the 1970s, have not yet been overshadowed by newly-constructed high-rises. The stalls of mostly old hawkers, sheltered in the shadow of unfinished buildings, are not visited by anyone. Syrians have been prohibited from opening their workplaces since August 11. A Syrian in his seventies tells us that he cannot sell anything at the stall he set up to sell his wares in his shop. He opens his hands in a prayer motion and looks up at the scorching sun, sitting on the edge of a briquette in the shade.

At noon, with the temperature at 37 degrees, children chatting with the police tuck their prayer rugs under their arms and run into the mosque amid the voice of the muezzin and the admonishments of adults. While we wait for Friday prayers to end under the suspicious eyes of the police, an old man on his way to the mosque tells us that since August 11, Syrians have been locked in their homes and that they no longer visit the mosque. After the congregation walks away, we chat with the Syrian muezzin who is sipping tea in the shed hut in the mosque courtyard.

Muhammed, who is in his fifties, says that he has been both working as a muezzin and cleaning the mosque for five years. He tells us that things have settled down and these issues will be fixed “if god allows.” How? “Racism and tribalism are the basis of discord and forbidden by our religion. If we keep away from them, we can live together as an ummah” (Muslim community). According to the muezzin, the incidents had calmed down without getting worse because most of the Turks had not become a party to the “discord.” Looking at the tension in the neighbourhood, which has all but been turned into a police station, the muezzin is either too optimistic or is afraid of getting into trouble.

Near the street-facing façade of the mosque, there are two shops, one of which was destroyed during the attacks. The repairman, who is also a refugee, is repairing the shutters of the destroyed shop. Next to this, in a second-hand domestic appliances shop, a Syrian boy says in broken Turkish that their shop was not damaged. The Syrians we approached did not want to talk to us.

We slowly walk past the photographs of Emirhan Yalçın, printed on giant cloth banners hanging from the ropes tied to upper floors of the buildings on both sides of the streets, and enter the park next to the muhtar’s office. Two young people welcome us on the bench where they are sitting. They offer us their half-full 2,5-litre-bottle of warm Coke and hand out cigarettes. Tayfun Y. and İsmail E., in their 20s, are friends both from the neighbourhood and from Kırıkkale University. Tayfun is a graduate of Public Administration, and works in a furniture store in nearby Siteler, where his salary is “almost four thousand lira.” İsmail, on the other hand, is unemployed. He is hoping that Tayfun will marry one of his relative’s daughters and move to Frankfurt and take him too. Tayfun replies, “That didn’t work out, friend. […] Getting married just to leave this country, I don’t know about that… But we want to go, no matter how.” İsmail cuts in: “If I somehow managed to get to Germany, I would accept to be treated by Germans the way we treat the Syrians.”

Four aspects of the night of August 11

The two friends said they had previously hung out at this park with a group of ten or fifteen friends, but that they had now stopped contact with everyone. Tayfun comments, “Because what we actually did that night was to throw stones at our own windows, we broke our own windows. Some people called us racist, others applauded us on social media. But in the end, we were left alone as the locals of the neighbourhood. Alone with our embarrassment, with our anger. Now police are deployed everywhere, but there is a tenser atmosphere than August 11. It is all a matter of a single spark, a single word.” İsmail interrupts: “We did actually throw stones at our own window, in both senses of the word. The district governor’s office replaced the broken windows. How, again with our taxes. Our situation is an example of pure ignorance.”

According to Tayfun, there were four different groups on the street on the evening of August 11: “Radical racists, who are a large presence in our neighbourhood. Those influenced and provoked by them. Looters, who plundered the shops. And those suffering from refugees. In other words, people like us. Our state caused disorder in their country, and they came here and we were left alone with them. Now, Syrians are much more anxious than we are. To be honest, we made an attempt on these people’s lives. Now, our people are organized, they act in unison, but what if the Syrians, too, get organized and act together soon? We cannot tolerate the Syrians, but now I and İsmail cannot tolerate the Turks either anymore. In fact, we have lost patience with everyone. We don’t like people anymore. This is perhaps because of our age, but we have no hope for humanity.”

İsmail says some who took part in the attack had rented their homes to Syrians and moved to the Hüseyingazi and Karapürçek neighbourhoods. He adds that the license plates given to Syrians start with the letter “M”, that everyone knows this, and that countless vehicles were attacked that night. “District markets have not been set up here for two weeks. I wonder if these cops are going to stand over us forever. They are leaving it to time, but this matter will only get worse as time passes. Those who are opposed to Syrians are manipulating us from afar and provoking us. Then they lean back in their seats and watch what happens. They cannot say anything about Tayyip Erdoğan, but they come and create trouble in our neighbourhood.”

Tayfun says “Friend, there are two different worlds in our neighbourhood. The Syrians’ world and our world. We neither make friends nor say hello to each other. But there is another world outside here, too. The world of Çankaya, Ümitköy etc. We cannot even go to Çankaya, let alone another city or country. We are stuck here, and we’ve fallen out with each other. Sometimes my uncle and his family come here from Germany, all of them have Erdoğan’s photo on their phones. And they say to us, ‘Appreciate Turkey, our homeland is so great, etc.’ Of course they do. One thousand euros equals ten thousand lira today. They come for a holiday to the most beautiful places in the country, then they go back. How about staying in Battalgazi for a few days? Then we will see how you delete those photos of Erdoğan.”

İsmail says that Syrians and Turks avoid shopping at each other’s stores in the neighbourhood. İsmail adds, “There were even people who rented their homes to Syrians among those throwing stones, such double-dealing.” He talks about the attitude of police: “Very interesting, the only street closed by police was here, Muhtar Arif Turan Street. The only place where no Syrians live in the neighbourhood!” Tayfun adds: “Even we were surprised, wondering why the police chose only to close this street. There is surely one more thing: the police do not know the Syrians’ homes, but we know. So on the other hand, they did not know what to do.”

“Both an end and a beginning”

A week after the attack, one of the bath attendants we chat with at the historical Şengül Public Bath says, “There is no need to bring in outsiders, the neighbourhood has been like a ticking time-bomb for years anyway. Those who carried out this attack already knew the neighbourhood back to front. That’s why the police could not cope with it”. One of the bath attendants is rubbing down an English customer. Wiping the sweat off his forehead, he begins to talk: “Look, Süleyman Soylu [the Interior Minister] is my client. When he comes here, he has the bath totally closed and stays here for four or five hours. Then he leaves a 600-lira tip. He has not come for a while because of the coronavirus. Soylu has only one problem, the PKK. He does not care about anything else. The man is obsessed with that matter. Think about it, a man who does not stop talking about it, even in the bath! As if the country has no other problem. His only concern is the PKK.”

In fact, what the bath attendant says about Soylu brings to mind another possibility. According to the exiled Kurdish politician Hatip Dicle, who talked to the Yeni Özgür Politika newspaper on August 16, racist anti-refugee attacks are carried out in a planned way according to a certain concept of the state, and the basis of this is actually the “Collapse Plan” introduced in 2014. The Collapse Plan, also known as the “Sri Lanka model,” was a “local and national” version of the horrific attack against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and the political and military war initiated after the ending of the solution process was part of this plan.

According to Dicle, the Altındağ attack is both an end and a beginning: “These are all trials, rehearsals. They are firstly started against refugees, then directed against the Kurds. The people who are actually under the threat of pogroms are Kurds. The attacks against refugees are designed as an early rehearsal.”

The attacks on the Kurds in Konya in recent months alone are enough to support Dicle’s assessment. A racist group of 60 people attacked the Dedeoğulları family, living in Konya, on May 12. Seven family members were injured. The majority of the ten arrested attackers were swiftly set free. No precautions were taken despite the family’s pleas, who stated that, “Our lives are in danger.” On July 21, 43 year-old Hâkim Dal, from Diyarbakır and living in Konya, was murdered in a racist attack. Then, on July 30, the Dedeoğulları family was attacked in the courtyard of their house by a racist named Mehmet Altun, who was apparently a skilled gunman. Seven members of the family were murdered. The family’s attorney, Abdurrahman Karabulut, said “The massacre was planned very professionally. The murderer is not alone.”

A group called the “Children of Fire” was indicated as the perpetrator of forest fires that started in late July and burned away forests in Antalya and Muğla. Based on the connection with this group, the fires were associated with the PKK and more generally with the Kurds, although there was no evidence whatsoever. While the fires continued, armed gangs descended onto the streets, forming checkpoints, openly hunting for Kurds, and the government acted as a mere spectator during the whole episode.

A veil of uncertainty, cracks appear

On July 31, the day after the racist attack in Konya, Erdoğan went to Marmaris and drew a veil of uncertainty over the fires: “Like you, we have the question in our minds, of ‘whether the terrorist organization is behind this.’ It is our duty to wrench out the heart of those who have torn out our hearts. If we detect such a link, and we have already found some indications, then we will do what is necessary.”

The government, which failed to cope with the fires, was clearly misdirecting and feeding the racist perception that the Kurds were behind the disaster, but was unable to offer any evidence whatsoever. Perhaps it considered that when the stake was loosened, the rest would simply follow.

The government made no statement during the attack in Altındağ. It did not try to address the uncertainty that deepened anti-refugee sentiment. According to the director of the Association for Migration Research, Didem Danış, this was an extension of the government’s policy of gaining power from uncertainty: “The government uses the power of uncertainty when it comes to refugees. It is said that ‘There is no immigration policy in Turkey’. But, in fact, there is: The immigration policy is governed by uncertainty. Asylum-seekers are not given permanent status, for example. Syrians are given temporary-protection status, trapped into a state of transition, uncertain about when and how it will end, so they are left condemned to the government.”

However, statements from the interior ministry and the Directorate General of Security, which partially lifted the veil of uncertainty, have created the impression that there was no unity within the government. For example, CHP Group Deputy Chairman Engin Özkoç stated on July 29 that he asked the interior minister, Süleyman Soylu, about the reason for the forest fires. Soylu told him there was no evidence of sabotage and that extreme temperatures were the primary cause of the fires. This statement, made two days before Erdoğan’s speech in Marmaris, weakened the stance of the government and its media, which had wanted to create a new anti-Kurdish wave of feeling via these forest fires. It looks like Soylu did this as a precaution against the possibility of being held responsible.

On the other hand, the Directorate General of Security, accountable to Soylu, made a statement on August 12: “After the sad event that took place in our Altındağ district, 76 people were arrested, who were found to be involved in the incidents of prejudice in the locality and who shared untrue posts on social media in order to provoke our citizens and create a certain perception.” It added that 38 of the arrestees had criminal records for offences like looting, wilful injury, robbery, and drug possession and trafficking.

On the one side, there was the gendarmerie that had remained a mere spectator while lynch mobs, who saw the Kurds as responsible for the forest fires, performed identity checks, and the police that had turned a blind eye to people attacking Syrians’ homes and workplaces. On the other side, Soylu was saying that there was no evidence of sabotage behind the forest fires, and the Directorate General of Security was making a statement about the arrestees in Altındağ, denying allegations of “Afghan refugees lowering the Turkish flag” on social media. It was clear there was similar discord regarding the Konya massacre.

The fact that, following the first attack on the Dedeoğulları family, the perpetrators were gradually released, and that the attacker’s family was given protection instead of the attacked, shows that the massacre had not only been tolerated but also permitted. The lawyer of the Dedeoğulları family said: “Even though we warned the officials, at every instance they said, ‘these are not racist attacks, whoever says that is carrying out a provocation’. Having said the incident is not related to racism, the governor and the attorney general did not even visit my clients’ relatives until the higher officials came.”

The only common feeling is “abandonment”

It was seen in Altındağ that the government was taking care not to appear to be in a position of protecting the refugees, and not even mentioning them. However, the arrival of millions of refugees escaping the Syrian war that started in 2011 was a part of the ruling AKP’s strategy of undercutting Assad. AKP aggravated the war by supporting jihadist groups in Syria, while it greeted millions escaping to Turkey with an “open-door policy”. The point was not only to increase the number of refugees for political reasons but also to provide cheap labour for capital.

As a matter of fact, referring to the anti-refugee campaigns of the main opposition CHP, AKP Chairperson Advisor Yasin Aktay said, “If the Syrians leave, the economy will collapse.” AKP Vice Chairperson Mehmet Özhaseki emphasized the refugees’ “contribution in the economy” with the following words: “In some cities, the industry is kept alive by the Syrians. If you go to Gaziantep, you will see thousands of people working in the toughest and most difficult jobs. The case is the same in the Kayseri industry. Employers cannot find workers, but these men are willing to work.”

Refugees were useful not only as cheap labour but as an instrument for blackmailing the EU. European leaders, particularly Merkel, were happy to come and visit Erdoğan, while EU institutions did not go beyond expressing their “concern” about serious human-rights violations in Turkey, acting as mere spectators to Turkey’s occupation of Jarablus, Azez, Manbij and Afrin, and financed “efforts” for refugees.

On the other hand, AKP does not share with society certain truths that would invalidate racist grumbling that claims, “Syrians are living off our back” and avoids mentioning that the EU is meeting the costs for refugees. In addition to this, almost no mutual “harmony” programs are developed in the regions where refugees live. For example, our colleague who witnessed the racist attacks in Altındağ said: “Six or seven years have passed, but there is still not the slightest social contact in the neighbourhood. Turks and Syrians do not even sit in the same café. No integration policy has been implemented. No steps have been taken to ensure people have more familiarity and contact with each other. Therefore, each group keeps up its guard against the other. Turks and Syrians in Battalgazi have only one common feeling: abandonment.”

CHP is making some attempts to use this “feeling of abandonment” in its own favour, by loosening the stake. Two weeks before the Altındağ attack, the CHP mayor of Bolu, Tanju Özcan, targeted refugees with these words: “They do not go even if you stop the aid. They do not go even if you say ‘I won’t give you a workplace license.’ We will increase water prices and solid waste fees tenfold for any subscriber of foreign nationality. Turkish citizens and foreign nationals will no longer use water at the same price.”

Very aware of what he is doing, Özcan does not hide his racism: “Some people will talk about human rights, they will call me ‘fascist’. I don’t care.” He was neither referred to a disciplinary committee nor reprimanded by his party. In fact, CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, on a TV show on August 6, commented that Özcan’s practice was “not correct,” but added: “He may have said something like that in the political climate of his region.” Well, what was that “political climate”, and whose work was it?

Syrians were still prohibited from opening their workplaces although two weeks had passed. The neighbourhood remains under police blockade. (Photo: Serkan Alan)

“Excellent observation”

Abraham, a 25-year-old Syrian university student who has been in Turkey for 11 years, sums it up: “If people struggling to earn a living are told that ‘the refugees are the reason for your trouble,’ then we are turned into a hate figure. However, there is no material basis for this rhetoric. Is there any concrete statistical data indicating that we are the reason for the economic crisis in Turkey? As far as I understand, racism, the sense of ‘we are superior to them’ plays a compensatory role for oppressed people. And the politicians are exploiting this.”

A poor internal migrant from Hakkari, who lives in Akdere, close to Altındağ, and collects paper from refuse containers in Ayrancı, says: “The poor cast out the poor. Those racists used to attack us in the past. Then the Syrians came and they set us aside and began to go for them. The smell of hunger emanates from some houses around Akdere. Those people think that when the Syrians leave, they will have kebab to eat day and night. Yet I am Kurdish, you are Turkish, he is Syrian; neither you are hungry because I exist nor am I hungry because you exist. While we are quarrelling with each other, it is the ones at the top who feast on all the kebabs.”

When we tell Tayfun and İsmail about their statements, they say they are an “excellent observation”. İsmail: “Once, people did not like Kurds here. Now the separation between us has ended, our common enemy has become the Syrians. Anytime soon, we will be friends with Syrians and see Afghans as the common enemy. While we fight among ourselves, the ones at the top feast on all the kebabs.” According to Tayfun, there is a greater risk: “We used to talk about this with each other. You drag someone’s kid behind a panzer, and the other kids see this. What will they do? They have no other option left than to become a terrorist. Now we are doing the same thing to Syrians and probably their children will grow up with this grudge and do the same thing tomorrow…”

As we leave, they ask us not to write their surnames. İsmail says, “It seems we will be left with no other choice, we will apply to become police officers. Tayfun thinks we should do our military service and stay in the army as specialist sergeants. So we will either become soldiers or police. They shouldn’t have the chance to use what we have told you against us.”

While “the ones at the top feast on all the kebabs,” the lower class has reached boiling point. There is an increasing possibility that one wing of the government – splitting into more factions as it weakens – might make various moves by turning anti-refugee or anti-Kurdish campaigns into a new “shock doctrine” before the elections. It is not for nothing that mafia boss and whistle-blower Sedat Peker, occasionally used as an irregular warfare figure by the government until recently, has drawn attention to such “provocations”, calling for “moderation” by nationalist groups and warning, “They will want you to pour out into the streets.” The stake is being loosened, and it is clear that there is not only one hand behind it.

On the night of the Altındağ attack, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was warning of “provocation” on Twitter, as if he and his party had not contributed to this climate: “It is clear that what has been carried out via Afghan and Syrian refugees in recent days is a provocation. Raising the Afghan flag, the messages of a so-called journalist provocateur, a Syrian youngster’s calls to ‘unite against CHP,’ attacks and deaths… I can see what these incidents may lead to, I will not allow the Palace government to set the country on fire. We will solve this asylum-seeker problem and of course, we will do it with common sense. We will bid farewell to our guests with our traditional instruments playing to send them on their way.”

It is not hard to predict that Kılıçdaroğlu’s musical farewell will be similar to what happened in Altındağ. Certain nationalist and fascist groups are injecting a new microbe into society by stirring together anti-refugee feelings and xenophobia with the anti-AKP sentiment. In his book Story of a German: Observations in Germany 1914-1933, Sebastian Haffner describes the preparatory phase of the racist climate, the loosening of the stake, and the microbe injected into society as follows:

“Once you become ready to kill people you live alongside – in principle and on a permanent basis and even adopting it as a duty – the changing individual targets will only become an insignificant detail. It is clearly seen from today that replacing ‘Jewish’ with ‘Czech’ or ‘Polish’ or any other figure will not be a problem at all. The issue is the systematic injection of a microbe into German people. This microbe is causing those who fall into its clutches to behave like a wild wolf to the people they live with, or, in other words, the sadistic instincts – that have been put under control or destroyed as a result of thousands of years of civilization process – break their chains, grow and become stronger.”

Until now, AKP has been able to instil this microbe in society by playing its religion and nationalism cards. CHP and the Nation Alliance, on the other hand, are responding to the germ with another, by fuelling the hostility against refugees and tending toward sexist, neo-nationalist, fascist rhetoric with slogans such as, “The border is an honour.” In this way, they are directing the hate and anger against AKP that already exists in society onto refugees. They are stealing people’s anger and destroying the possibility of a democratic Turkey. When terrifying attacks like those in Altındağ occur, they sit back and watch the disaster, saying “I did nothing, I just loosened the stake,” just like AKP has done for so many years.