On 7 April 2019, Sarah Handelmann fell as a martyr as a result of an air raid by the Turkish army in the mountains of Kurdistan.

The German internationalist joined the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in 2017 and, with her code name Sara Dorşîn, joined the women's guerrilla YJA-Star.

Sarae would have been 35 on 25 November. The Tübingen branch of the “Women Defend Rojava” (WDR) campaign launched by the northeast Syrian women's movement Kongra Star used Sarah Handelmann's birthday as an opportunity to erect a memorial in the university town of Baden-Württemberg.

Before Sarah Handelmann moved to Berlin, she lived in Tübingen for three years. Here she studied literature and lived in the Schelling, a self-managed housing project. Although most of the members of the WDR local group did not get to know her personally, her personality and her struggle in the liberated mountains of Kurdistan have left deep marks in Tübingen.

A memorial site was erected in her memory. It should be a place where all people who knew Sarah Handelmann, can remember her or feel part of the Kurdish liberation struggle.