Racist fire attack: Why did Germany forget to do Anh LAN?

In 1980, two Vietnamese were victims of a racially motivated fire attack in Hamburg. To this day, the mother fights one of the victims for a memorial – unsuccessful.

Racist fire attack: Why did Germany forget to do Anh LAN?
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  • Page 1 — Why did Germany forget to do Anh LAN?
  • Page 2 — no apology, no compensation
  • Page 3 — resistance from your own community
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    Racism ranks our thinking and living toger. With focus on "everyday racism" we want to find out why this is what this means for society and how this could be changed. With a visit to pensioner do MUI, we want to find out what consequences a racist crime can have even decades later.

    If you look around in do Muis apartment, you can see almost every wall of photos of your son do Anh Lan. In wooden closet above flat screen TV, pensioner has placed a black and white portrait and left on family altar a faded full body Photo: sunglasses, denim shirt, hands casually supported on hips. Before photo: Fresh fruit, biscuits and extinct incense sticks. Do Anh Lan no longer lives, he died 38 years ago.

    In 1980, he and room neighbor Nguyen Ngoc Chau were victims of a fire attack on ir refugee home. It is first documented racist murder by Germans to foreigners in Federal Republic after 1945. And do Muis of incense sticks smoke yellowed living room is only place that reminds of young man.

    On August 21, 1980, Heinz Colditz, Sibylle Fore Bruges and Raymund Hörnle drove to Hamburg by car. The three had met in doctor's office of Colditz, y were well networked in extreme right-wing scene and counted mselves as a terrorist cell in German action group. Now y were on tour of Germany.

    At a petrol station y bought a newspaper, Hamburg Evening leaf. One of articles described how some hamburgers were annoyed by relocation of 29 asylum seekers from a home in Fulda to Hamburg. The spokesman of SPD-led Senate, Manfred Bissinger, spoke of an "impossible and permanently intolerable state". The city was "already overloaded with 9,000 asylum-seekers", continued to stand re. Because re were not enough facilities for refugees, some "relate" on government costs in hotels and pensions. At end of article was also address of provisional accommodation: Halskestrasse.

    The next evening Colditz, Front Bruges and Hörnle with three Einliterflaschen of petrol and Putzwolle. The burning bottles met room of Nguyen Ngoc Chau and do Anh Lan, young men already slept. Nguyen Ngoc Chau dies next morning, do Anh LAN will be killed in hospital nine days later. In morning after attack stands on façade of accommodation in red colour: "Foreigners out!"

    My son thought he was safe in Germany from bombs – and n y killed him in Germany with a bomb? Do MUI

    Only weeks later, do MUI learned of death of her n 18-year-old son. He had fled like hundreds of thousands of or people from South Vietnam after war 1978 with a boat to open sea-in hope that passing ships would see and rescue m. Most died on run, Anh Lan was lucky. A ship took him to Malaysian island of Pulau Bidong, and from re he came to Germany thanks to a programme of aid. The country accepted so-called boat people benevolently. In Hamburg, do Anh Lan godparents, respectively, Heribert and Gisela von Yellowhammer found him. The couple had read in newspaper about incoming Vietnamese refugees and wanted to help. For mor do Mui, who had been left in Saigon, Goldammers a request for family reunification. MUI waited for positive news from Germany, on permission to come to her son.

    But she shouldn't see him again. "Friends had read me a newspaper article on fire attack," recalls do Mui, who belongs to Chinese minority and does not dominate Vietnamese script. She didn't understand message anyway. "My son thought he was safe from bombs in Germany," she says. Germany, y painted mselves as a country in which he could lead a good, peaceful life, and one day y might as well. "And n y killed him in Germany with a bomb?" After news, she also wanted to die. Instead, she cried.

    Date Of Update: 22 June 2018, 12:02