Forms of remembrance
The local remembrance of the five people killed was not a matter of course and was accompanied by some controversy between the city administration/municipal politics and the Genç family. On the one hand, the city of blades does not only want to be perceived in connection with the attack, on the other hand, the city organises communal memorial events, on anniversaries also in the presence of representatives of state and federal politics (cf. Demirtaş et al. 2023:25).
Since 1994, the arson attack and the young women and girls who were killed have been continuously commemorated at two locations in Solingen. The important and actual memorial site for the Genç family is located at Untere Wernerstrasse 81, the former home of the family where the five people were murdered. Here, the family mourns and remembers together with a rather small circle of supporters, mainly from the German-Turkish community. It was not until 1995 that a memorial stone was erected at Untere Wernerstrasse 81 by Jugendhilfe-Werkstatt-Solingen with the names of those who died and the information that they were killed by a racist act. Every year since 1994, the portraits of those who died have only been shown on portable banners by people of Turkish origin at the commemoration on Untere Wernerstrasse.
The city of Solingen chose a different location for the official commemoration ceremony on the first anniversary, although this was not agreed with the Genç family (Genç, H. 2023; Genç, K. 2023). Since 1994, the city has organised the communal commemoration at a memorial on the grounds of the Mildred Scheel Vocational College. Because the city itself showed little initiative in erecting a memorial after the arson attack, this memorial was designed by the Solingen Youth Welfare Workshop on its own initiative and erected on the grounds of the Mildred Scheel Vocational College on the basis of close cooperation with the school. The content of the memorial’s design and its position in terms of remembrance policy were also not agreed with the Genç family at the time. The memorial was inaugurated on 29 May 1994, the first anniversary of the arson attack. Thousands of people took part in the inauguration ceremony, commemorating those affected and demonstrating against racism.
Immediately after the attack, Mevlüde Genç fought for remembrance, commemoration, recognition and the visibility of her daughters and granddaughters who had been killed, despite her grief, suffering and pain. Without her struggles, some of the current memorial and remembrance formats in Solingen would not have been realised. The memorial plaques and seven steles that were created in Solingen to mark the 30th anniversary are based in particular on the demands of Mevlüde Genç and other family members, who repeatedly campaigned in a private and public context to make the faces of the murdered people visible. Mevlüde Genç campaigned for peaceful coexistence and against racism immediately after the attack until her death on 30 October 2022. She showed human greatness immediately after the attack, when people showed their collective anger in the form of violent protests and demonstrations with sometimes violent riots on the streets. Despite her immense pain and grief, she called for an end to the violent protests.
