Hanau is everywhere

Hanau is everywhere. Hanau is in Germany.

On 19.02.2020, nine people were killed in Hanau in an attack with racist motives. Gökhan Gültekin, Sedat Gürbüz, Said Nesar Hashemi, Hamza Kurtović, Fatih Saraçoğlu, Ferhat Unvar and among them, also the Romani people Mercedes Kierpacz, Kaloyan Velkov and Vili-Viorel Păun. The audio is a speech by Svetlana Kostić (RomaniPhen e.V.) on the memorial day of the murdered.

According to the RTV Trend Report 2020 Right-Wing Terrorism and Violence in Western Europe, 1990 – 2019 von dem Centre for Research on Extremism: The Extreme Right, Hate Crime and Political Violence University of Oslo, In 2020, no other country in Western Europe since 1990-2019 has experienced as much severe right-wing violence as in Germany.
In Germany, there is a gap in the recording of racist hate crimes and a large discrepancy between the counting of fatalities of right-wing violence by state authorities and by independent organisations and journalists. While in the years between 1990 and 2019 the federal government counts 113 homicides as right-wing motivated, research by the Amadeu Antonio Foundation reveals at least 219 deaths from right-wing violence (as of 2019).

Printed speech of 19.02.2022

We from IniRromnja and the feminist archive RomaniPhen welcome you all very warmly!

Unfortunately, we cannot be there today, but we would like to share our words of sorrow and sympathy with you. We would also like to express our respect for the long and gruelling struggle of the relatives for an appropriate examination of the racist terror.

We were asked to refer directly to Mercedes Kierpacz in our speech. As a matter of fact, two years ago we received a message from a colleague that a Romni had been murdered in Hanau. Further updates followed on how young she was, that she leaves behind two children, that she was pregnant, then the announcement of her funeral. Parallel to the Whatsapp messages, the press had already reported on the racist terrorist attack, the first witnesses had spoken out.
We were frozen, shocked, dismayed, stunned… We started conversations with each other, with other Pocs/migrants – with people who experience racism in Germany. We felt more connected facing the racist terror.

The parents have lost their daughter, the children their mother, the family members a hardworking, cheerful, lovable sister, cousin, aunt, niece, granddaughter. We, the Romani people, who were not directly related to or acquainted with the Kierpacz family, also felt a deep pain, we felt the loss and new fears arising.

This attack is part of a German racist tradition. 77 years ago, the genocide of our people, who were deprived of their humanity in Germany and throughout Europe, came to an end. Today, our greatest respect is for those who for two years have been tirelessly pointing out the racism, the structural discrimination, the ignorance of those responsible and fighting for clarification. Our appreciation today is for those who, despite the grief, loss and everyday pain, find the strength to remember and commemorate.