An underground train station in Frankfurt, Germany, has been named after a Turkish teenager who lost his life trying to help a person who had fallen onto the tracks.
The Ostendstraße stop on the city’s S-Bahn underground system will now also be known as Alptuğ-Sözen-Station, according to German media reports.
New signs in memory of brave Mustafa Alptuğ Sözen were unveiled during a ceremony at the station that took place on Wednesday, 12 June, after an online petition received thousands of signatures.
The youngster, who lived with his family in the town of Hanau, was 17 when he lost his life in the incident in November 2018.
He and another traveller were rescuing a 44-year-old homeless person who had fallen onto the tracks, reports at the time said.
However the teenager was unable to move out of the way of an approaching commuter train and was crushed to death between it and the platform.
Speaking at the unveiling of the new signs and a commemorative plaque, Frankfurt Mayor Peter Feldman said that young Mustafa had shown “heroic courage”.
He said he hoped the station’s new name would mean that his “selfless and honourable actions” would never be forgotten.
The ceremony was held in the station’s entrance hall and was attended by the boy’s family – including his parents, younger brother and grandparents – school friends and numerous others, including Turkey’s Frankfurt consul general Burak Karartı.
Imam Mustafa Macit Bozkurt said prayers at the ceremony, saying that “whoever saves one life, it is as if he has saved all humanity”.
