Erfurt (dpa/th) - The victim advice center ezra has counted eleven deaths from right-wing violence in Thuringia since 1990. So far, however, only one case from 1993 has been state-recognized, ezra announced on Thursday. The last case registered and classified by the counseling center concerns the death of a man in February 2020 in Altenburg after an attack with homophobic motivation.
For years, victim counselors have been calling for an independent scientific review of deaths suspected of being committed with a right-wing motive. According to the victim counseling center and the left-wing parliamentary group, the Berlin School of Economics and Law in cooperation with the Moses Mendelssohn Center at the University of Potsdam is now responsible for this scientific review. A state parliament resolution on this was already passed in November 2018.
"It's good that the investigation is finally starting in Thuringia," said Katharina König-Preuss, spokeswoman for anti-fascism for the left-wing parliamentary group. After years of waiting, relatives of the victims and survivors can now be helped to obtain information and recognition.
There is a social responsibility to make right-wing acts of violence, killings and murders visible, to recognize them and to create a dignified commemoration, explained ezra adviser Franziska Schestak-Haase. Ezra works under the sponsorship of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany. Since April 2011, the counseling center has been supporting people who are being attacked because perpetrators assign them to a group of people they reject.
