I’ve been very rare here lately, posting nothing, reading little, liking and commenting even less. That’s partly because I have soooo much to do – AI hasn’t made me redundant yet – and I can’t discuss what I do here. But there is this one thing that’s important to me:
Six years ago today, less than five kilometers air distance from here, nine fellow citizens with a migrant background were murdered in a racist and right-wing extremist act of terrorism by a paranoid German. His name is unimportant.
Their names must not be forgotten: Gökhan Gültekin, Sedat Gürbüz, Said Nesar Hashemi, Mercedes Kierpacz, Hamza Kurtović, Vili Viorel Păun, Fatih Saraçoğlu, Ferhat Unvar and Kaloyan Velkov.
Vili Viorel Păun came twelve years ago to Germany from Romania because his mother wanted to receive treatment for her illness. His parents describe him as a cheerful, helpful and hard–working person. On the night of the crime, he was returning from a shift as a courier driver. He noticed the perpetrator, pursued him in his car, and tried unsuccessfully to make emergency calls to the police. The then 22-year-old was shot dead in the driver’s seat of his silver Mercedes. The mobile phone he used to try to call for help is since carried around by his father, Niculescu. His mother Iulia said: „Vili spoke many languages, Italian, French, Spanish. He actually wanted to study.“ Vili was their only child.
Say their names: Gökhan Gültekin, Sedat Gürbüz, Said Nesar Hashemi, Mercedes Kierpacz, Hamza Kurtović, Vili Viorel Păun, Fatih Saraçoğlu, Ferhat Unvar and Kaloyan Velkov.