Enlarge image
Commemoration of Sedat Gürbüz, one of the victims of Hanau, at the Dietzenbach cemetery
Photo: Mitsuo Iwamoto / DER SPIEGEL
Sibel Leyla and Emiş Gürbüz raise their hands in prayer.
Together they are sitting on the bench in front of the grave of Emiş's son Sedat, here in the Dietzenbach cemetery, about 20 kilometers from Hanau.
Behind the tombstone, an imam intones verses from the Koran.
Emiş Gürbüz wears a dark blue scarf around his head and rocks to the beat of the prayer.
The afternoon sun shines on her face.
Later, Leyla puts her arm around Gürbüz.
She is perhaps one of the few people who can even begin to understand what Gürbüz is feeling at this moment.
Emiş Gürbüz and the families of Hanau commemorate their deceased sons, mothers and brothers today: Gökhan Gültekin, Sedat Gürbüz, Said Nesar Hashemi, Mercedes Kierpacz, Hamza Kurtović, Vili Viorel Păun, Fatih Saraçoğlu, Ferhat Unvar and Kaloyan Velkov.
Sibel and Hassan Leyla are also by her side today.
They also lost their son to a right-wing extremist assassin.
That was more than five years ago, during the racist attack in Munich.
The father can't sleep at night and texts his buddies: "Refuel?"
Saturday morning at a gas station in the Moosach district of Munich.
It's still dark and the last gusts of the »Zeynep« low are sweeping through the streets.
The Leylas buy butter pretzels, chocolate and coffee.
Hassan Leyla drinks his coffee with a lot of sugar.
He only slept for two hours, he says it's been like this since his son's death.
When he's awake, he says, he occasionally writes to his buddies: "Refuel?".
Then they meet at this gas station for a late night coffee.
The clerk who is on duty often works the night shifts here.
Leyla knows him well.
He briefly tells him in Turkish that he and his wife are going to Hanau today to be with the families.
Hassan Leyla accelerates on the freeway.
Occasionally he lights a cigarette while his BMW drives past the windmills shimmering in the morning light.
Hassan and Sibel Leyla talk about their home in Turkey, the southern Turkish city of Antakya, formerly Antioch.
They missed the city, the sea, the looseness.
Hassan Leyla was born and raised in Munich, a real »Mingara«, as his Bavarian colleagues would sometimes say.
Sibel Leyla only came to Germany after meeting Hassan in Antakya.
At first she struggled in Germany, she says.
Since her 14-year-old son Can was killed by a racially motivated assassin in the summer of 2016, she has regretted ever moving to Germany.
She asks herself: why did my innocent son have to die?
Why couldn't the authorities stop the perpetrator before or during the crime?
Why was it so easy for him to get a gun?
These are questions that the families of Hanau are asking themselves today.
The victims' families were not allowed to have a say in who was allowed to come to the memorial
Arrived in Hanau, the Leylas follow the official commemoration event on a screen in the meeting room of the February 19 initiative.
The mayor of Hanau, Hesse's interior minister, the federal interior minister, and the victims' relatives speak.
The Leylas would also like to be at the Hanau cemetery, where the official commemoration event is taking place, and would like to offer consolation to the families.
But the state of Hesse has limited the number of participants to 100 people.
Corona requirements.
The families were not allowed to have a say in the choice of guests.
They therefore meet later at the other cemetery, in Dietzenbach.
Emiş Gürbüz gives a combative speech.
"The state of Hesse took over this official commemoration event," she says.
“As a mother, I should have decided who was allowed to be there today.
This decision was also taken away from me.« The dozen or so people in the meeting room applaud her for these words.
Also Sibel and Hassan Leyla.
The feeling that politicians don't take them seriously, even in memory: the Leylas know it well.
When her son Can was shot dead in a Munich McDonalds in 2016, the verdict of the media and authorities was quick and clear: a youth who felt bullied ran amok.
The authorities ignored the fact that the perpetrator stirred up hatred for migrants and their descendants in right-wing chat forums, that he admired the right-wing extremist Anders Breivik and that his attack began in Sweden exactly five years to the day after his crime.
The Leylas had to fight for more than three years before the Bavarian authorities officially recognized that the crime was "politically motivated right-wing crime," as the security authorities put it somewhat awkwardly.
The survivors of Hanau and Munich want to fight racism together
To this day, they don't feel that the city of Munich takes them seriously.
According to the bereaved, their efforts to set up a memorial room in the Nazi documentation center in Munich were ignored by the museum management and the cultural department.
On the commemoration days, the same empty phrases would always be used: "We mourn with you, we suffer with you." But when the Leylas formulate specific wishes, those responsible turn around and do what they wanted to do - that's how they see it.
After the official commemoration, some of the families of the victims gather in the meeting room in Hanau.
There is Turkish tea, pide and cake.
Sibel and Hassan Leyla hug Nicolsecu Păun, father of Vili Viorel Păun.
The Leylas know how difficult anniversaries are, how emotional, how exhausting.
They want to be here today to give strength.
It's not her first visit to Hanau.
After the commemoration event on the anniversary of the attack in Halle, they were here at the invitation of the families.
We ate together, met each other.
And on the fifth anniversary of the attack on Munich's Olympia shopping center last summer, a few families from Hanau came to Munich.
It was then that the Leylas and Emiş Gürbüz realized that they both have the same hometown: Antakya.
In the future, the families from Hanau and Munich want to grow even closer together and fight together against right-wing extremism.
Fighting together so that no one has to suffer their fate in the future.
In the afternoon, Emiş Gürbüz and Sibel Leyla are sitting on the bench in front of Sedat Gürbüz's grave.
The two mothers hold each other tight.
Over a hundred people are standing around them.
They came to the cemetery to mourn together.
About Sedat Gürbüz, about the nine victims of Hanau, but also about the more than 200 people who, according to the Amadeo Antonio Foundation, have been killed by right-wing extremists in Germany since 1990.
At the end of the Muslim service, Leyla and Gürbüz rub their faces and say "Amin" together.
Amen.
They share a moment that Sibel Leyla later says there are no words for.
You just feel endless pain.