MOn Saturday, several thousand people commemorated the attack on February 19th four years ago in Hanau with rallies and a demonstration through the city center. The “February 19th Initiative”, an association of relatives of the victims and survivors of the attack in which a racist attacker murdered eight men and a woman with foreign ancestry in 2020, invited the event.
Members of other right-wing extremist terror attack sites such as Halle, Dessau, Cologne and Dortmund also followed the call. According to police estimates, around 5,000 people took part, the organizers spoke of around 8,000. According to the organizers, together they wanted to send a “strong signal against racism, anti-Semitism and right-wing extremism,” as the call said. According to the police, the commemoration was peaceful and there were no incidents.
The first meeting point was Kurt-Schumacher-Platz at 2 p.m., the second location of the attack in February 2020. After a short opening speech by a spokeswoman for the initiative, a demonstration set off towards the city center at around 2:30 p.m. At the top, relatives carried a banner that read, “To remember is to change.” This described a central demand of the organizers, who called for more information about and consequences of what they saw as the failure of the authorities surrounding the attack.
Almost without slogans and banners
The speaker asked participants to roll up banners and flags from organizations that they had brought with them because the event was primarily about remembering the attack victims. Shouting slogans should also be avoided. The demonstrators largely followed these requests. Many also accepted the organizers' offer to carry one of the numerous cardboard signs with portraits of the victims of racism who died in Hanau and other cities. When the train arrived at the market square around 4 p.m. – there had previously been an interim rally at Heumarkt, the first site of the attack – slogans like “Resistance everywhere – Hanau is not an isolated case” were chanted.
The victims' surviving relatives then spoke in detail for around two hours. As was the case at Kurt-Schumacher-Platz, there was repeated criticism of the state investigations, but also of the city of Hanau. Well-known allegations were repeatedly raised, such as that an escape door in the Arena Bar, one of the attack sites, was locked and the police emergency number could not be reached. Among other things, it was demanded that the market square should become the location of the planned central memorial monument. The design of the monument has already been decided, but there is still no agreement on the location with the city, which has suggested several options but excluded the market square for practical reasons.
Rap in honor of the victims
In the stands, the bereaved expressed their pain and sadness over the loss of their loved ones, which had not subsided four years after the terrible events. The names of the victims were mentioned again and again, including in a rap presented at the beginning and at the end: Said Nesar Hashemi, Hamza Kurtović, Ferhat Unvar, Gökhan Gültekin, Sedat Gürbüz, Mercedes Kierpacz, Vili-Viorel Păun, Fatih Saraçoğlu and Kaloyan Velkov. By the end of the rally around 6 p.m., the ranks of participants on the market square had already thinned out significantly.
The Hessian Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU) also recalled the attack four years ago in a statement at the weekend. “What happened in Hanau four years ago remains incomprehensible. This cruel event will never be forgotten – neither for the relatives nor for us as a society,” assured Rhein. The names of the victims and the suffering of those left behind serve as a reminder to overcome racism and misanthropy and to actively combat them at all times.
On Monday, the actual anniversary of the attack, the city's central celebration will take place at 11 a.m. in Hanau's main cemetery. It was agreed with the relatives that there should be a quiet remembrance without political speeches. Wreaths should not be laid on the victims' graves of honor in the Muslim burial ground of the cemetery, as originally planned, but in front of the mourning hall on the forecourt. According to their statement, the city is also following a wish from the ranks of the bereaved. In addition, many found and still find people around the anniversary Activities by various organizers instead of.
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