German president receives family of 1992 Molln arson attack victims
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier received on Tuesday the family of victims of a neo-Nazi arson attack in Molln, Germany in 1992.
Steinmeier hosted Faruk Arslan, who lost his mother and daughters in the racist attack 30 years ago, his wife Hava Arslan, his children Ibrahim and Namik, and his aunt Ayten Arslan at the Presidential Palace Schloss Bellevue.
The closed-door meeting lasted approximately one-and-a-half hours.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency after the meeting, Faruk Arslan expressed his bittersweet emotions as it took 30 years to get an invitation from the German president.
“Because we have realized that we are not forgotten. But I think it would have been better if it had been done earlier. We sat down and talked about our problems,” Arslan said.
On Nov. 23 in 1992, Turkish citizens Bahide Arslan and her two granddaughters Yeliz Arslan and Ayse Yilmaz died after firebombs were thrown into their home by neo-Nazis. Nine others were injured in the attack, which sparked fears among the Turkish immigrant community.
Germany has a 3-million-strong ethnic Turkish community, the majority of whom are second and third-generation German-born Turks whose grandparents moved to the country during the 1960s.
The attack in Molln was the first deadly arson attack targeting immigrants in Germany, and it was followed by dozens of similar attacks in the 1990s.
AA
