Germany unveils memorial to neo-Nazi victims

DORTMUND

The 10-meter memorial stone lists the names of the dead, along with the locations and dates of the killings. AA photo

A memorial to the victims of a German neo-Nazi cell, National Socialist Underground (NSU), was unveiled in Dortmund on July 13.

The 10-meter memorial stone lists the names of the dead, along with the locations and dates of the killings. The western German city is believed to have been the location of the cell’s eighth killing in April 2006, when 39-year-old Mehmet Kubaşık was shot at his kiosk. The NSU is suspected of involvement in the killings of 10 people, eight of them Turks, between 2000 and 2007.

The ceremony was attended by the integration minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Guntram Schneider, Turkish Consul General to Essen Şule Özkaya, Dortmund Mayor Ullrich Sierau and the family of Kubaşık.

The memorial also bears a text jointly worded by the cities of Nuremberg, Hamburg, Munich, Rostock, Kassel, Heilbronn and Dortmund, where the killings took place. Further memorials are to be built in the other six cities. Beate Zschaepe, the alleged surviving member of the trio, is currently on trial in Munich for her role in the killings.