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Feature
WHO BELONGS IN TODAY’S GERMANY?
ONE MOTHER’S LONELY JOURNEY THROUGH THE TRAUMA OF RACIST VIOLENCE.
September 12, 2024, 8:00 AM Comment icon View Comments (0)
By Emily Schultheis, a journalist based in Los Angeles who has covered European
elections and the rise of the far right.
Women wearing black, some with headscarves, stand looking forward in front of a
statue in Germany. Behind them is a crowd of other men and women.
Serpil Temiz Unvar (second from right), the founder of the Ferhat Unvar
Educational Initiative, stands with members and friends of the initiative in
Hanau, Germany, on Jan. 19, 2023. Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images
My FP: Follow topics and authors to get straight to what you like. Exclusively
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* Politics
HANAU, Germany—On a fall day in 2022, Serpil Temiz Unvar was sitting in her
kitchen when, through the window, she saw an older man and a German shepherd
standing outside. Assuming the man was a neighbor, Unvar opened her window to
greet him. She was bewildered when he began asking her increasingly strange and
aggressive questions: Are you Kurdish? Why did you leave your homeland? How do
you have enough money to live here and to go on so many vacations back in
Turkey?
HANAU, Germany—On a fall day in 2022, Serpil Temiz Unvar was sitting in her
kitchen when, through the window, she saw an older man and a German shepherd
standing outside. Assuming the man was a neighbor, Unvar opened her window to
greet him. She was bewildered when he began asking her increasingly strange and
aggressive questions: Are you Kurdish? Why did you leave your homeland? How do
you have enough money to live here and to go on so many vacations back in
Turkey?
The experience left Unvar, 51, deeply unsettled. After the man left, she called
several friends who confirmed what she already suspected: The man with the
German shepherd wasn’t just a neighbor. He was also the father of her son’s
killer.
the-dial-functional-tag
This article is co-published with The Dial, a new magazine of international
journalism and literature.
Unvar’s son Ferhat, then 23, was one of nine people shot and killed in a violent
rampage targeting immigrants on Feb. 19, 2020. The shooter, Tobias R., opened
fire at a bar in Hanau’s center before driving across town, where he shot a man
who had followed him from the first bar by car. Then, Tobias R.—identified by
his first name and last initial in keeping with German privacy laws—walked into
the Arena Bar & Cafe, showering patrons in a spray of bullets, Ferhat among
them. The shooter then drove to his mother’s house, killed her, and turned the
gun on himself.
The shootings shook Hanau, a city of just over 100,000 people 15 miles east of
Frankfurt. The city is among Germany’s most diverse: Nearly 30 percent of
Hanau’s population does not hold a German passport, according to recent city
statistics, around twice the national average. German media reported that Tobias
R. had posted a manifesto on his website shortly before the attack, which
authorities described as demonstrating a “deeply racist attitude.”
The Hanau attack became a symbol of Germany’s struggle to extinguish far-right
violence and anti-immigrant ideology. Then-Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned
the attack, warning, “Racism is a poison. Hate is a poison.” But soon, news
crews departed. Politicians who had offered solemn condolences moved on to other
matters, and the country went into lockdown as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold.
Unvar felt a growing sense of rage at the government’s lack of response to the
Hanau attack, she told me when I sat down with her in March. Later that year,
she became an activist: She founded an educational initiative aimed at fighting
racism in schools; testified on the Hanau killings in the state parliament of
Hesse, where Hanau is located; and worked with the family members of other
victims to pressure the government to take action to prevent future racist
attacks.
But honoring Ferhat’s memory has made Unvar a target herself. The man’s 2022
visit to her home wasn’t an isolated event; Hans-Gerd R. came back that night
and the next day. After Unvar filed a restraining order against him, he started
sending her letters. “If you as a migrant hate the land of the German people,
then please leave it, and quickly, and please go back to where you came from,”
he wrote in one missive. The harassment and stalking are still going on, she
told me.
Unvar’s fight against racist ideas about who belongs in Germany has laid bare
how deeply ingrained this ideology remains in parts of the country—particularly
as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party continues to creep up in
the polls. “We want to trust this country, but this country also needs to
protect us,” she said. “But how? I don’t know.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Three flag-draped coffins are seen in the foreground of a giant crowd of
mourners outside in a public space. Brick buildings are seen behind them.
Mourners pray prior to the funeral of victims of the shootings in Hanau on Feb.
24, 2020. Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images
The Hanau murders came on the heels of a string of other deadly racist attacks
in Germany. Less than six months earlier, in October 2019, another right-wing
extremist showed up at a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle on Yom Kippur
intent on murdering Jewish worshippers; he ultimately killed two people outside
the synagogue. Earlier that year, a local politician in the Hessian town of
Kassel, Walter Lübcke, was shot and killed by a right-wing extremist who was
unhappy over the politician’s welcoming policy toward refugees.
Hanau commanded particular attention because it was a targeted assault on people
with “immigration backgrounds,” the official term Germany’s Federal Statistical
Office uses to describe those who were born to at least one parent who was not a
German citizen. German authorities also faced intense scrutiny for their
handling of the incident.
The killer had been allowed to purchase a gun despite past indications that he
had a mental illness, which authorities did not adequately investigate before
issuing him a weapons permit. The Hanau police were slow to respond to emergency
calls about the shootings because they were chronically understaffed. An
investigation by regional authorities also revealed that 13 of the officers who
responded to the attack were part of a police unit that was later disbanded due
to a scandal over membership in right-wing chat groups.
In the Arena Bar, where Ferhat was killed, an emergency door had been locked to
keep patrons from fleeing during regular police raids on the venue to look for
illegal drugs. A damning investigation by the U.K.-based group Forensic
Architecture featured in an exhibition in Frankfurt two years ago found that all
five of those killed in the bar could have survived had the door been unlocked.
Two police officers are seen in the foreground. Behind them are emergency
vehicles and police tape in front of illuminated buildings and a dim sky.
Police and emergency personnel are seen behind a police cordon in Hanau on Feb.
20, 2020, near one of the bars where the shootings occurred. Thomas Lohnes/Getty
Images
Late last year, after years of testimony and hearings, a Hessian parliamentary
committee investigating the authorities’ response to the attack issued its final
report. In 642 pages, it details the various security failures that contributed
to the loss of life that day. But without concrete consequences for those
responsible for the security failures in Hanau, victims’ family members say it’s
hard to believe anything will meaningfully change in how Germany handles
right-wing and racist terrorism.
None of the officers or authorities involved in Hanau’s security failures were
disciplined or removed from their posts explicitly due to their handling of the
situation. Although the Hessian parliamentary committee’s report outlined areas
where German law enforcement had fallen short, those who lost family members
that day felt its recommendations—for more stringent checks before issuing
weapons permits, to develop anti-racism programs in schools, and to better
communicate with families of victims—offered little more than lip service.
Armin Kurtovic, whose son Hamza was killed in the attacks, described the report
as a “slap in the face” to the victims’ families. “I was convinced something
like this wasn’t possible in this country,” he told German broadcaster
Hessenschau late last year. “But the more I get involved and the more I read,
the more I see: This is continuity.”
Read More
Spectators hold portraits of former German national team soccer player Mesut
Ozil during a World Cup match between Spain and Germany at the Al-Bayt Stadium
in Al Khor, Qatar, on Nov. 27. Spectators hold portraits of former German
national team soccer player Mesut Ozil during a World Cup match between Spain
and Germany at the Al-Bayt Stadium in Al Khor, Qatar, on Nov. 27.
MESUT OZIL’S GHOST STILL HAUNTS GERMANY
Proposed citizenship reform offers a chance at redemption.
Argument
|
Allison Meakem
AfD demonstrators holding German flags gather at the main station in Berlin to
attend the "demonstration for the future of Germany" called by the far-right AfD
in Berlin on May 27, 2018. AfD demonstrators holding German flags gather at the
main station in Berlin to attend the "demonstration for the future of Germany"
called by the far-right AfD in Berlin on May 27, 2018.
GERMANY’S FAR-RIGHT PARTY IS WORSE THAN THE REST OF EUROPE’S
The Alternative for Germany is more popular than ever—and more dangerous.
Analysis
|
Paul Hockenos
Police officers’ handling of the investigation was infuriating to Serpil Temiz
Unvar, but it was hardly surprising to her and others who have tracked the
history of far-right attacks in Germany. The authorities’ seeming blind spot for
this kind of violence—and a lack of concrete action to prevent it—extends back
far beyond Hanau.
The most famous case of recent far-right violence in Germany was that of the
National Socialist Underground (NSU), a neo-Nazi terrorist cell that killed 10
people, mostly immigrants, across Germany over the course of 13 years, evading
police notice. In their investigations of each murder, the police fell back on
racist stereotypes of immigrants, assuming that those slain had been involved in
the drug trade or victims of immigrant-on-immigrant crime; the German media
dubbed them “kebab murders.”
“A nation that liked to think it had atoned for its racist past [was] forced to
admit that violent prejudice was a thing of the present,” American journalist
Jacob Kushner wrote in his recently published book on the NSU murders, Look
Away, adding that “in an age of unparalleled mass migration, the targets of
white terrorism are increasingly immigrants.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A woman is seen out of focus in the foreground. A man's portrait hangs on the
wall behind her along with other posters and photos.
Unvar at her organization in Hanau on Jan. 19, 2023. Behind her is a portrait of
her son Ferhat, one of the victims of the 2020 shootings.Thomas Lohnes/Getty
Images
When I arrived at the offices of Unvar’s organization, the Ferhat Unvar
Educational Initiative, in March, the first thing I saw was a black-and-white
mural of Ferhat. Wearing a cap and looking forward, his face appears next to the
words “We are only dead when we are forgotten.” Ferhat had posted the phrase on
social media before his death. It has now become his mother’s guiding principle
as she builds an organization to honor his memory.
Unvar grew up in a Kurdish city in southern Turkey, near the border with Syria.
Her father moved to Paris, and she eventually joined him. She moved to Hanau
when she married a Kurdish man there, with whom she had four children, including
Ferhat, before later separating.
In the months after her son’s killing, Unvar said she agonized over what she
could have done to make his life better while he was still alive. She thought
about the discrimination he faced in school as a student with an immigration
background and found herself wracked with guilt that she hadn’t fought harder
for him: pushing school officials harder to allow him on a more ambitious track
of study, for example, or urging them to stop the discrimination he faced from
teachers and other students.
Ferhat was gone, but many other children with similar backgrounds faced those
same tough odds at school—and there was still a way to help them, Unvar
remembered thinking. Nearly nine months after the attack, on Ferhat’s birthday
in November 2020, Unvar officially founded her organization, which seeks to
combat racism and discrimination in the German education system, giving talks
and holding trainings and workshops to empower young people struggling against
systemic racism and to educate teachers about the challenges that students from
immigrant communities face.
Her first donation was from a group of Ferhat’s friends, who handed her an
envelope with 125 euros they had raised together. She was touched and buoyed by
the gesture. “I said, OK, I couldn’t help Ferhat, but I can help them through
Ferhat,” she said.
The organization has since scaled up significantly. Donations and grants helped
Unvar hire staff and spread the word about their anti-discrimination workshops.
Some are for school-age children and youth, giving them a safe space to talk
about their experiences of discrimination or racism; others are for teachers and
educators, training them to root out racism in their classrooms; yet more are
for adults in other professions, including airport staff at Frankfurt Airport.
Along with Initiative 19 February Hanau, an organization run by the family
members of several of the Hanau victims, Unvar’s initiative won the Aachen Peace
Prize in 2021.
The legs of three people are seen sitting on chairs with a paper with German
words on it on the floor.
The Ferhat Unvar Educational Initiative holds an anti-racism workshop in Hanau
on Feb. 16, 2023. Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images
“I never had it in my head to do something like this,” said Unvar, reflecting on
how her life changed after the attack. Sitting on a black couch in one corner of
the organization’s big event space, with posters depicting the organization’s
logo and events on the walls and brochures for her training programs on tables
across the room, Unvar was animated as she described how she and others have
built the initiative into what it is today. At the same time, she said, so “many
people instrumentalize [the attack], not just politicians but also others. That
hurt me deeply.”
Unvar told me that she hopes to create a cross-border support network for
families of victims of terrorism. In Greece, she met Magda Fyssa, the mother of
Pavlos Fyssas, a young anti-fascist musician murdered by members of the neo-Nazi
organization Golden Dawn. She has also traveled to Norway, Spain, and France to
meet with other families of terrorist victims and with organizations that combat
terrorism. Unvar spoke with local activists and experts about ways to
collaborate in their fight against violent extremism and learn from one
another’s experiences.
“Regardless of which country I was in, I never felt alone,” she said. “I saw how
many other people are also fighting in this direction against terror, for
humanity, for human rights—that gave me strength.”
But Unvar admitted that it can be difficult to press forward with her activism
while feeling that no matter how hard she works, or how hard others work, her
efforts are unlikely to change a country unwilling to address its shortcomings
when it comes to welcoming and safeguarding immigrant communities.
In January, the German investigative news outfit Correctiv released a report
about a secret meeting between right-wing extremist leaders near Berlin,
including members of the far-right AfD. Those present discussed a “remigration”
plan to deport millions of people with immigrant backgrounds, including those
with German passports.
A member of the AfD holds a German flag with German words on it during a
far-right protest.
Members of the Alternative for Germany party hold a demonstration in Köthen in
Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, on Sept. 16, 2018. Craig Stennett/Getty Images
Unvar said the national outrage over the Correctiv report—and the millions of
people who turned out to protest across the country in the weeks that
followed—gave her hope that the German population at large finally understood
the scale of its problem with right-wing extremism. “It’s good that [the story]
came out because then people like us can see how big and important a problem it
is,” she said. “The racists—they’re not letting up. We’ve seen the danger is
there. … We need to really hold together against the right wing and against
terror.”
Still, the AfD continues to gain ground. Riding a wave of support for far-right
parties across Europe, the party gained 5 percentage points in June’s European
Parliament elections, coming in second—ahead of all three of Germany’s governing
parties—with 16 percent of the vote. The AfD then won its first state-level
victory in the eastern German state of Thuringia on Sept. 1, taking 32.8 percent
of the vote; in neighboring Saxony, it came in a close second to the
center-right Christian Democrats, with 30.6 percent of the vote. A third eastern
state, Brandenburg, votes on Sept. 22; the AfD is leading the polls there.
The far-right party is also a growing threat in Unvar’s home state: In the years
since the attack, Hesse’s political landscape has shifted to the right. The AfD
won 18.4 percent to become the second-largest party in last fall’s state
elections, an increase of 5.3 percentage points from the previous election in
2018.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
People hold signs with images of victims of the attack in Hanau. One woman holds
a sign that reads "Hate Has No Home Here."
People hold signs and images of victims of the 2020 shootings in Hanau on the
anniversary of the attack on Feb. 19, 2023.Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images
In February, around the anniversary of the Hanau attack, Hans-Gerd R. sent Unvar
another letter. Another one followed this spring.
Hans-Gerd R. has been cited dozens of times for harassing Unvar and other
victims’ family members and for repeatedly violating a restraining order against
Unvar. He was taken into custody when he defied the restraining order and showed
up outside her house again in 2023. He was also briefly sent to jail that year
for failing to pay his fines for the various citations he had received related
to that harassment.
But despite the restraining order, the police told Unvar that they can’t do
anything about the letters that keep arriving at her house: There are no laws in
Germany against sending missives to someone via the postal system, regardless of
the intolerance they contain.
Hanau Mayor Claus Kaminsky described Hans-Gerd. R’s harassment of Unvar and
other victims’ family members as “subtle, almost diabolical” terrorism in a 2023
interview with the German broadcaster ARD, saying he wished the man would leave
Hanau. But he reiterated that there is little the authorities can do beyond the
penalties they have already put into place. “Of course, it would be best if the
father left the city, if he changed his place of residence,” Kaminsky said.
“That might even be better for him. But there is no legal way to force this.”
Toward the end of our time together, I asked Unvar whether she was afraid that
Hans-Gerd R. would escalate from letters and leering outside her kitchen window
to something worse. Unvar’s youngest son, Mirza, who is 11, had just come into
the office and sat down next to her on the black leather sofa. She wrapped her
arms around him as he looked up shyly.
“I’m not afraid, no. I really have zero fear—what should I be afraid of? What
can happen? I’ve already lost my dearest son,” she said.
Ultimately, as she told me repeatedly throughout the course of our conversation,
her fight isn’t about her. The educational initiative, the connections abroad,
the advocacy, the long hours of volunteer work—it’s about children like Ferhat
who struggle to get ahead in school because of the color of their skin; it’s
about Mirza, sitting on the couch next to her, being able to grow up feeling
safe.
“The killer’s father is still a danger to my family,” she said. “I don’t fear
for myself, but I have children.”
Emily Schultheis is a journalist based in Los Angeles who has covered European
elections and the rise of the far right. X: @emilyrs
Read More On Germany | Politics | Race and Ethnicity | Terrorism
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