Cetin Gültekin knows exactly where his brother was killed. He knows the route that the attacker took.
He clearly recalls how the killer got out of his car and shot the driver of a parking vehicle, his brother, and four other people in a convenience store at Hanau, Germany.
Racially-motivated Shooting
A year after the crime, the store is empty and slips of paper with the names of those killed are plastered on the windows. Cetin Gültekin points to a spot through the window pane.
“Where those two sockets are, that’s where my brother’s body was lying,” he says.
On February 19, 2020, Hanau’s town was the site of the single deadliest racially motivated attack in postwar Germany.
A 43-year-old gunman who subscribed to paranoid racist theories shot nine people who had either migrated to Germany or whose families had over the course of one night at several locations in Hanau, in Hesse.
Afterward, it is believed that he killed his mother and then himself.
After the killings, there were shows of public solidarity with the victims and their families nationwide.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Angela Merkel attended a central memorial service.
But, one year on, questions remain: Has the danger of nationalist violence been underestimated in Germany for decades? And has enough been done against right-wing extremism and racism since the attacks?
The Mourning Continues
If you ask the nine victims’ families in Hanau, the answer is quite clear: No.
Relatives of the people killed have joined forces with other supporters to form the February 19 Initiative and demand explanations.
The initiative opened a spacious office in central Hanau — not far from one of the crime scenes. But it is much more than just an office.
It is also a memorial for the people killed. Photos and drawings of their faces hang on the walls and sit on the windowsill.
“For me, this room is as if we were visiting Gökhan,” Gültekin says. “It’s his living room. And, when the Unvar family comes here, it’s Ferhat’s living room.” Gültekin, who comes here almost every day, refers to Ferhat Unvar, who was killed in the store alongside his brother.
Much remains unresolved, tormenting the families.
Why didn’t the emergency phone line not work properly that night?
If the police had been notified immediately after the first shots were fired, the gunman might have been stopped before he went on to the second location.
Why was the killer allowed to possess weapons legally? Why had he not come to authorities’ attention even though he sent a confused letter full of conspiracy theories to the chief federal prosecutor months before the racist attack?
These questions may never be answered, partly because the attacker killed himself and will not stand trial. The federal prosecutor’s office is still investigating, but so far, there is no evidence that the attacker had an accomplice.
“Of course, it is very, very difficult to deal with the fact that the perpetrator will not be brought to justice and that one or two questions cannot be answered,” says Helmut Fünfsinn, the commissioner for the victims of terror attacks in the Hesse state government.