Last week the German government held a memorial and observed a national minute’s silence to remember the 10 people murdered by a notorious neo-Nazi gang since 2000. The victims included nine people of Turkish descent and a German policewoman.
Details about the killers only came to light last November when two people believed to be founders of the National Socialist Underground (NSU) were found dead in a caravan in the eastern German city of Zwickau. Shortly after the discovery another gang member, Beate Zschaepe, gave up herself to the police after blowing up her rented accommodation in the area.
At a ceremony in Berlin attended by the victims’ relations and several dignitaries, where 10 candles were lit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the incident as a “disgrace for our country.” She asked the victims’ families to forgive the authorities for the failure in identifying the gang, and promised to do more to make sure that such heinous crime is not repeated anywhere in the country.
While Metro Éireann believes that the memorial indeed sends a strong message to the German people, we have to ask if it is a lesson that still needs to be learned, especially coming after 27 January’s remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust.
For German society not to witness anything of this scale again, we believe it must first address the way many Germans today see and treat people who are different.
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