There are now two concrete benches at the place where Mehmet Turgut died. Article 1 of the UN Charter of Human Rights is engraved on the backrests, in German and Turkish: “All people are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” The monument was inaugurated ten years ago and is intended to invite “quiet dialogue”. Instead, it was smeared several times and covered with black paint. In 2018, unknown people left the abbreviation: “NSU”.
You could sit here and talk about what happened twenty years ago on Neudierkower Weg in the northeast of Rostock, when there were no modern apartment buildings here, just a sky-blue snack bar. Mehmet Turgut opened the “Mister Kebab Grill” on the morning of February 25, 2004; he had spontaneously stepped in for a friend. Shortly after ten o’clock he was shot dead by members of the right-wing extremist terrorist group that called itself the “National Socialist Underground”, or NSU for short.
The officials investigated the family’s environment and destroyed their reputation
Mehmet Turgut was 25 years old and was the fifth of the ten victims of the NSU. The murder in Rostock was the only one in East Germany; the investigation started late and was slow. It is thanks to civil society that today there are panel discussions, demonstrations, posters in the pedestrian zone and wreaths on these two benches.
But the 20th anniversary comes at a time when the racist excesses of the post-reunification period no longer feel so far away. Because there is a public debate again about whether the boat is full or not, because the number of crimes against refugees is increasing. Because the AfD, which is largely right-wing extremist, is also on the rise in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The local parliaments will be re-elected in June.
“We are always the first to feel when the social climate is changing, when a new wave is rolling towards us. For us, the threat has never been over,” says Seyhmus Atay-Lichtermann, chairman of the Rostock Migrants Council. In 1999 he came to the city from Turkey with his family, went to school in Lichtenhagen and met Mehmet Turgut, whom everyone just called “Memo”. A friendly young Kurd who worked all the time because he really wanted to gain a foothold in a place that was “not a safe haven” at the time.
Rostock at the turn of the millennium was a “war zone,” says Atay-Lichtermann, “almost worse than what we fled from.” Skinheads hunted people who didn’t look German enough – after school, between the prefabricated buildings, on the bus. “It was very clear to us that these weren’t just some bored young people, they were well organized.” When looking for an apartment, his father only had one requirement: at least the third floor. Otherwise they’ll break your windows, with stones or, even worse, with Molotov cocktails like at the Sunflower House.
The investigation is going slowly, files are blacked out, witnesses don’t remember
“We feared that someone might die at some point,” says Atay-Lichtermann. “When we heard that Mehmet had been shot, we immediately said: They were neo-Nazis.” The NSU first had to unmask itself in 2011 before the investigative authorities came to the same conclusion. The officials had previously investigated Mehmet Turgut’s environment and thus destroyed the family’s reputation.
In the summer, Seyhmus Atay-Lichtermann wants to run for Rostock citizenship. Like Turgut’s family, he has been fighting for years to have Neudierkower Weg renamed. It should be called Mehmet-Turgut-Weg. He promotes this on the stage of the Peter Weiss House, a cultural center where concerts take place and panel discussions like the one last Friday: What can be learned from the Mehmet Turgut murder case? What are the failures and what are the consequences? Members of the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry should provide information on this. The hall is well filled with people who are significantly younger than Mehmet Turgut would be today.
The political investigation has been ongoing in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania since 2018, and two investigative committees have looked into the NSU complex. The findings are thin, files blacked out, witnesses cannot remember. Michael Noetzel speaks of “pure disappointment”. He was born in Rostock and sits on the committee for the Left. One can only come to the conclusion that the authorities do not want clarification. Why did the investigators initially rule out a racist motive? Why did the perpetrators choose this hidden snack bar? How could they even know him without local supporters? The committee will probably no longer clarify these questions for the time being; they want to do so in the future dedicate to more current problems such as the right-wing extremist network “Nordkreuz”..
The crime scene could bear the victim’s name, but the local council sees it differently
Mustafa Turgut can’t just carry on like this. Every year he stands here, on Neudierkower Weg, which does not yet bear the name of his murdered brother, and should never bear the name of his murdered brother, according to the responsible local councils. A corresponding application was rejected several times. He has to shake many hands on this Sunday afternoon: Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Interior Minister, Rostock’s Mayor, the Turkish Consul General, they all came. A new memorial plaque is inaugurated, fresh grass has also been sown, but it doesn’t really want to grow over this crime scene.
“We live in difficult times,” says Mustafa Turgut in his short speech. The hatred of back then, the fatal idea that people are not equal, is spreading again in society. Shortly before, the President of the Rostock Citizens’ Council had informed him that they would try to name another street after his brother when a new building was built in another part of the city. “We have now simply reached a dead end,” she says. And Mustafa Turgut, a slim man in a down jacket, says that’s better than nothing.
Behind him, people place flowers on the two concrete benches that are offset from each other. You could talk to each other here or, literally, past each other. Perhaps there is no more fitting memorial.