Status: 08/22/2022 2:40 p.m
In 1992 there was a racist excess of violence in Rostock-Lichtenhagen for days. The pictures go around the world. On the other hand, dozens of attacks on refugees that happened long before that have almost been forgotten.
There had already been violent Nazis in the GDR. But for a long time the state security capped right-wing extremism. Officially, the problem did not exist. After reunification, the scene became visible on the street – and, also controlled by Nazi officials from the West, attracted more and more young people. At the same time, the federal German immigration law applies in the former GDR: Im unification contract states that the five new federal states together must now take in 20 percent of all asylum seekers in Germany.
“The children screamed in fear”
Natalia Kalougina was relocated from Hamburg to Schwerin in 1991 as an asylum seeker.
One of those seeking protection is Natalia Kalougina, who came to Hamburg in 1989. The authorities distribute her family according to the German unity, however – according to the new quota to East Germany. The choir conductor from Odessa ends up in Schwerin with her two small children. The three of them move into a room in a former apprentice hostel. Shortly afterwards, in May 1991, the shelter was attacked by right-wing extremists: “It was terrible,” Natalia Kalougina says today. “The bottles with Molotov cocktails flew into the windows and the children screamed in fear. The parents had to cover their ears and eyes.”
30 people are housed in the home – they have sought protection in Germany from Romania, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Ghana and Iran. Now they are attacked with stones and clubs. In the end, the home is devastated and the families are taken to emergency shelters.
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Attacks on homes in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are increasing
Already in the summer of 1991 – and thus a year before the brutal attacks in Rostock-Lichtenhagen – violence against refugees in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is the order of the day. In July, 15 young people attacked accommodation for Yugoslav families in Wismar, smashed windows and yelled slogans like “Foreigners out!”. Several people are injured. On the same weekend, five masked people climbed into a shelter in Trollenhagen near Neubrandenburg and beat up a woman. The residents of the home sleep in the corridors for the next few days because they are afraid of another attack.
No security guard in Ueckermünde in the evening
In August 1991, a shelter for refugees in Ueckermünde was attacked and demolished by 30 masked men.
On a Saturday in August 1991, 30 masked men attacked a newly furnished accommodation in Ueckermünde, smashed windows, sprayed people and furnishings with fire-extinguishing foam, and set fire to a car. A five-month-old child needs treatment in the hospital. At the time, Manfred Quägber was the home manager of the accommodation in Ueckermünde and was there before the police: “We found misery there,” he remembers the picture. “Everything was outside on the meadow in front of the home. They couldn’t do anything anymore. It was all useless. It looked desolate.” He also recalls that the occupants of the shelter were vulnerable to the robbery that night. Neither the police nor a private security service provided security. The rampaging group got in without any problems, says the former director of the home today: “The door was open.”
Police protection will be reinstated after a few weeks
The state government in Schwerin is also concerned with the safety of the refugees in autumn. The first Minister of the Interior in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Georg Diederich (CDU), has all accommodation in the state guarded for three weeks at the weekend in October. 2,400 police officers are on duty. They ensured that “every attack, every incident that could degenerate into threats against the asylum seekers could be nipped in the bud,” said the minister at a final press conference on the campaign. However, the permanent surveillance is discontinued. At the time, there wasn’t the strength to do so, and too many police forces were tied down, Diederich explains today: “In view of the findings that emerged from this one month, it was decided that larger attacks across the board were not to be feared.”
Asylum seeker in Saal is beaten to death
A graffiti in Ribnitz-Damgarten commemorates the death of the Romanian asylum seeker Dragomir Christinel in March 1992.
A few months later, in March 1992, the 18-year-old Romanian asylum seeker Dragomir Christinel was beaten to death in a refugee camp in Saal near Ribnitz-Damgarten. On the evening before his death, there had been an argument in a nearby disco: four Romanians were attacked by a group of young Germans. One of the asylum seekers injured a 19-year-old German with a knife.
The next evening, almost 30 young men make their way to the asylum seekers’ accommodation. The security service does not notice that some of them are getting into the window. In the barracks, however, the young people do not find the attacker from the disco, but Dragomir Christinel and a friend. They beat the 18-year-old with clubs – he died. The police and public prosecutor’s office initially did not want to see a xenophobic background at the time. For them, the act is an act of revenge after a fight among young people.
Youth initiative wants to remember Dragomir Christinel
Many people would still see it that way today, says Ribnitz-Damgarten’s Mayor Thomas Huth (The Independent). For him, on the other hand, the motive is clear: “If he had been a German, then there would probably have been anger. But in the end he would not have been dead. That’s a racist background,” says Huth. The reason he’s dead now: “Because he was a foreigner.”
Nevertheless, the act in the region is almost forgotten today – like almost all raids and attacks apart from the riots in Rostock-Lichtenhagen. An initiative of the alternative youth center in Ribnitz-Damgarten no longer wants to accept this. A graffiti by the victim above the entrance to her youth center is already reminiscent of Dragomir Christinel. This is also important in a smaller tourist town, they say: “It also shows the people who visit the city that we are trying to come to terms with our history, so that something like this doesn’t happen again,” says Oliver Müller from the alternative youth center. His initiative is currently looking for relatives of the victim in Romania. A memorial stone in Ribnitz-Damgarten will soon commemorate the death of Dragomir Christinel. The city supports the commemoration.
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