Germany, Turkey mark deadly 1993 neo- Nazi attack
Berlin, May 29: Germany will hold memorial events on Tuesday for five ethnic Turkish victims of a neoNazi arson attack 25 years ago, at a time of resurgent xenophobia and simmering bilateral tensions ahead of Turkish elections.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will attend ceremonies along with Mevlude Genc, 75, who lost two daughters, two granddaughters and a niece in the 1993 house fire in the town of Solingen.
Despite her huge personal loss in one of post- war Germany’s most notorious racist hate crimes, which sparked days of rioting, Genc went on to call for reconciliation, for which she later received Germany’s highest civilian honour.
President Frank- Walter Steinmeier, after meeting Genc last Friday, praised her “as a role model for everyone who fights against discrimination, racism and violence” and warned that “the memory of this cruel act must not fade”.
Germany has struggled with a new upsurge of racist attacks and farright activism, including the entry into parliament of the Alternative for Germany ( AfD) party, after an influx of more than one million asylum seekers since 2015.
Turkey’s foreign ministry on Monday voiced concern that “racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia are on the rise” again in the EU country and called on politicians and media there to “use prudent language”. AfD co- leader Alice Weidel this month received a formal rebuke from the parliamentary speaker for describing immigrants as “headscarf girls, welfare- claiming, knife- wielding men and other good- for- nothings”.
While both Germany and Turkey will voice their common sorrow over the tragic deaths, tensions linger between the governments of Merkel and President Erdogan.