Hanau: Germany, your dead! A guest post by Hatice Akyün

Guest post

The star-The request to write something on the fourth anniversary of the murders in Hanau came to me unexpectedly. Has it been four years? I am ashamed that I seem to have ignored it while just a few hundred kilometers away from me families who have lost their loved ones are grieving.

My memory of February 19, 2020 came back bit by bit. The feeling of shock, disbelief, tears and powerlessness. I wonder if it’s a dulling that we’re moving faster and faster to normality.

It wasn’t the first time that citizens of this country had to die because of their origins. What actually happened to the “never again” and the many promises made by politicians that something will really change this time?

Racist violence in Hanau: Today we, tomorrow you

Something struck me: the people who took to the streets in Hanau last Saturday to remember the dead looked like me. They were people with a migrant background. Where were my fellow German citizens without a migration background?

We all find the murders incredibly terrible, yet the suggestion is that they are an internal affair among migrants, just like the NSU murders, which left a trail of blood through Germany for ten years before they were exposed as racist murders. Calling them the kebab murders was not accidental. It was the line between them and us, to keep us at a distance so we didn’t have to get too involved. But the NSU dead, just like the dead in Hanau, are Germany’s dead.

It should be clear to all of us, with or without a migrant background, that attacks on minorities are attacks on our entire society. Today us, tomorrow you.

They are still victims of racism and anti-Semitism. But then come homosexuals, homeless people, people with physical disabilities and political opponents. A look into the history books is enough. It is up to us not to go back to business as usual. Not forgetting and not repressing it is the least we can do. Same for me.