Germany and Turkey put aside their diplomatic tensions Tuesday to jointly remember the five ethnic Turkish victims of a murderous neo-Nazi arson attack a quarter century ago and warn against resurgent xenophobia and racist violence. Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, both speaking at a solemn ceremony, said the lesson of the deadly 1993 attack in the German city of Solingen was to resist a new wave of anti-immigrant hatred.
The attack "wasn't the first and won't be the last" in Germany or Europe, said Cavusoglu, listing other far-right murders since then and cautioning that "politicians and media have a responsibility not to spread discrimination". The anniversary came as Germany struggles with a new upsurge of attacks and far-right activism, including last year's entry into parliament of the anti-Islam party Alternative for Germany (AfD), following an influx of more than one million asylum seekers since 2015.
The arson attack 25 years ago, one of post-war Germany's most notorious racist hate crimes, also occurred at a time when a large influx of migrants, then from post-Soviet eastern Europe, sparked an upsurge of tensions that saw mobs attack and torch refugee homes. In the Solingen attack, four right-wing extremist skinheads aged 16 to 23 set fire to a Turkish family's home - targeting Germany's largest minority group of about three million, the legacy of a 1950s and 60s era "guest worker" programme.
The blaze killed five women and girls, the youngest just four years old, and injured 14 other people. Bereaved family matriarch Mevlude Genc, 75, who lost two daughters, two granddaughters and a niece, earned widespread admiration for urging reconciliation amid the street violence that followed.
Genc recalled Tuesday how, after the massive personal loss, "I cried at night, but during the day I smiled at my surviving children to ensure that hatred doesn't enter their hearts. "I do not want revenge and I bear no hatred, except for the four persons who turned my family home into the grave of my children."
Merkel told Genc, who has received Germany's highest civilian honour, that "you responded to an inhumane act with great humanity. For that we admire you and thank you." The four juvenile and adult offenders received maximum jail terms of 10 to 15 years and all left prison years go. The space where the charred remains of the Genc family house once stood is now a vacant lot where five chestnut trees have been planted in memory of those who died in the flames.
Merkel - who has received both plaudits and hatred for opening German borders to a mass influx of refugees, many from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan - also warned that "right-wing extremism is not a thing of the past". Especially in Germany, with its responsibility for the Holocaust, racism and violence are "a shame for our country", she said.
Without mentioning the AfD, Merkel warned that some were once more "breaking taboos" and "using language that sows the seeds of violence". AfD co-leader Alice Weidel this month earned a formal rebuke in parliament when she described immigrants as "headscarf girls, welfare-claiming, knife-wielding men and other good-for-nothings".
The day of remembrance, also including rallies, prayers and memorial events organised with Muslim, Christian and civic groups, came as Germany and Turkey have worked to normalise relations after a deep crisis. Germany has repeatedly voiced concerns about deteriorating civil rights in Turkey, especially after mass arrests following a failed 2016 coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who now faces June 24 elections.
Ankara has been angry over Berlin's decision to bar Turkish politicians from campaigning among the 1.4 million ethnic Turks eligible to vote in their ancestral homeland - a move Erdogan last year slammed as a "Nazi-style" ban. Some German commentators had voiced fears that Cavusoglu could misuse the memorial events to campaign or deepen divisions in the Turkish-German community.
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