On February 19th 2020, in a quiet German town called Hanau, a deadly shooting attack took place. 9 people in two hookah bars were shot dead and 5 people wounded in a violent rampage. The hookah bars were chosen specifically by the attacker who held deeply racist beliefs.
The victims were:
Hamza Kurtović, Ferhat Unvar, Vili Viorel Paun, Said Nesar Hashemi, Mercedes Kierpacz, Sedat Gürbüz, Gökhan Gültekin, Fatih Saraçoglu, Kalojan Velkov, and the shooter’s mother Frau R.
The attacker Tobias R left behind a manifesto filled with racist hate and further investigations uncovered extensive beliefs in conspiracy theories.
After the shooting thousands of people in Hanau gathered for an anti racism demonstration and there was a memorial service attended by The Chancellor, Angela Merkle.
There is a mural commemorating the Hanau victims in Frankfurt under the Friedensbrücke, translated as the ‘Peace Bridge’. The faces of the victims tastefully painted with the phrases “Racism Kills” and “ Never Forget”. The artistic group who created the mural said:
“The aim of this mural is not only to commemorate but to confront people with social problems so they have to think about them, and not avoid them.”
A digital commemoration for the victims will take place on 19.02.20 at 12.00 and there will be an inter religious service.
https://www.demokratie-leben-hanau.de/projekte/projekte-2021/saytheirnames-projekt
#SayTheirNames
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