Familiar Places

As a child Ibrahim Arslan survived the arson attack on his parents’ home in Mölln in which three members of his family were killed. Today he says that his family suffered not just one, but two attacks. After the Molotov cocktails had burnt out, the Arslan family became a target of attacks again, this time coming from the media, politics and society. These attacks were worse than the incendiary devices because they could have been avoided, Arslan says. In her film, Mala Reinhardt asks why even today many victims of radical right-wing violence are forced to live through the same experience of being treated with hostility and criminalised. The victims, who have formed a network, analyse with impressive clarity which conditions make racism still socially acceptable in our country. The essential thing now is to listen to them. Luc-Carolin Ziemann