Zwickau remembers NSU victims: large demonstration on November 2nd!

Zwickau remembers NSU victims: large demonstration on November 2nd!

On November 2nd, Zwickau will be the scene of an important commemoration. The “No Closure Zwickau” alliance is calling for a memorial demonstration to remember the victims of the right-wing extremist NSU terror. The event begins at the main train station at 12 p.m. and leads via the memorial site at the Schwanenteich to the main market. The aim is to keep the memory of the ten murder victims alive and to send a strong message against extremism. This is all the more important since the NSU terror cell murdered ten people between 2000 and 2007 for racist motives, nine of whom had a migration background, as Freie Presse reports.

The memorial event is a direct continuation of the annual remembrances that took place in Zwickau in 2024, when about 80 people took part and the names of the ten victims were read out. Candles were lit and those present showed their solidarity with the affected families. In her speech, Saxony's Democracy Minister Katja Meier (Greens) emphasized the urgency of coming to terms with the NSU complex and the responsibility not to forget the victims. Bundestag Vice President Aydan Özoguz (SPD) was also there to point out the relevance of these memories. Özoguz also finds out about the progress of the NSU documentation center in Chemnitz, which is scheduled to open in 2025, as MDR reports.

The NSU and the processing

The NSU group, consisting of Uwe Mundlos, Uwe Böhnhardt and Beate Zschäpe, lived underground in Chemnitz and Zwickau for years. After a failed bank robbery, Mundlos and Böhnhardt were discovered dead in a mobile home, while Zschäpe was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018 because she was a member of a terrorist organization and charged with aggravated arson. These acts cast a long shadow on German society and call for a deep, social debate that goes beyond commemoration, as is also discussed in Zeit.

The NSU Documentation Center in Chemnitz, which is considered the first of its kind in Germany, will represent a new milestone in the processing. It will include signs remembering the victims as well as stories from survivors. For example, Serkan Yildirim, who was seriously injured in an attack in 1999, is presented as a powerful testimony to the grim reality of NSU terror in the facility. Yildirim survived a bomb attack and, despite the cruel experiences, remembers his roots in a multicultural society for which he wants to make a strong statement.

With regard to the memorial demonstration in Zwickau, it is important to emphasize that remembering these painful events should not only be viewed as mourning. Rather, our mission is to actively stand up against racism and extremism and to raise our voices for an open and diverse society.