Six years after the racially motivated attack in Hanau that killed nine people, demonstrators across Germany commemorated the tenth victim. The youth alliance „Remember Hanau“ called for events to fight racism and forgetting. For the first time this year, the city organized no official commemoration.
On February 19, 2020, Tobias R. shot and killed nine people in Hanau: Gökhan Gültekin, Sedat Gürbüz, Said Nesar Hashemi, Mercedes Kierpacz, Hamza Kurtović, Vili Viorel Păun, Fatih Saraçoğlu, Ferhat Unvar, and Kaloyan Velkov. The attack was racially motivated. In January, Ibrahim Akkuş died as the tenth victim from late effects.
Around the anniversary, demonstrations and commemorations took place in Hanau and many German cities. The youth alliance „Remember Hanau“ called for a public commemoration on February 21. The young people had planned the action since November. On Hanau's market square, participants chanted: „Resistance everywhere, Hanau was no isolated case.“ They carried signs with the victims' faces and slogans like „Never again is now.“
Alliance member Chris explained his motivation: „What happened back then in Hanau was an overwhelming blow for me.“ Emis Gürbüz, mother of the murdered Sedat Gürbüz, and Çetin Gültekin, brother of Gökhan Gültekin, spoke of their pain. Gültekin emphasized: „We must not give up. We cannot give up.“ They called for standing up for diversity and criticized the system that failed on the night of the attack.
The Bildungsinitiative Ferhat Unvar, founded by the victim's mother, advocated for clarification. Dilan, who demonstrated for the initiative, demanded: „A comprehensive clarification of what happened on the night of the crime.“
This year, the city of Hanau organized no official commemoration for the first time. Some politicians had called for a „new beginning“ with a reduced framework. For relatives and demonstrators, this means forgetting; they want to make the memory visible and speak out loudly against racism.
