Photo by Maximilian Borchardt
By Özlem Özgül Dündar
Translated from German by Henning Bochert
Özlem Özgül Dündar is a German playwright from Solingen, born in 1983. Her play an grenzen, which I translated into English, narrates the continued history of violence against the foreign workers from South European countries who were hired to build Germany’s economy after WWII, tracing rejection and prejudice from the 1950s to growing violence and straight murder in the 21st century.
The text is a radical, poetic and tender approach to the topic, sparked by a series of racist murders in Germany between 1999 and 2010 by a group that named itself the NSU, short for national-socialist underground. Their nine victims were shop owners, vendors, businesspeople of mostly Turkish background, also one Greek man and one female police officer. They attempted 43 murders and committed three bomb attacks and 15 robberies. The police were only able to track them down, because they had started claiming the murders. When the arrest was imminent, two men apparently killed themselves, while their collaborator, Beate Zschäpe, was arrested and has been in prison ever since. It is suspected that the network was or is much larger.
Dündar manages to navigate this complex topic with a very personal style and narration. One voice talks to another, silent You, clearly yearning understanding and proximity from the other one. The voice, envisioned female by the playwright and talking in the second person, often refers to her parents, her mother’s line of factory work in the metal industry, piecework at the conveyor belt, a particularly dehumanizing occupation. The early wounds on her mother’s body, inflicted by handling the metal workpieces, the famous Solingen blades, later become bodies being openly attacked first with fire, and finally with guns and bullets – once again metal in a different shape.
For me as the translator, the specific challenges of the text lay in its specific, insistent language. Its physical references, its materialist terminology and sensual quality all serve to create a proximity, a tenderness of style, rendering any racist views impossible. The themes of body, work and injury dominate in the approach. Strictly avoiding any higher register, any academic, ‘complicated’ terminology, Dündar succeeds in creating a play with a particularly low educational threshold – a very inclusive approach. At the same time, she supports this on a formal level by notating her text entirely in minuscules and without any punctuation. In German, where the written language indicates nouns and surnames by capital initials, and where punctuation rules are much stricter than in English, this choice of notation creates an artificial type face, echoing a tradition which goes back at least to the poet Stefan George who lived and wrote the 19th century.
In the spoken-word performance, this formal aspect is seemingly lost, since we don’t see the language in its written form. But only seemingly so. In the written German, punctuation serves, much more than in English, to create an order and syntactical hierarchy between the parts of a sentence, thus clarifying the information and making sense of the language. If the playwright decides to drop interpunctuation, she necessarily has to write in a profoundly different way to avoid constant misunderstandings or confusion, i. e. to make the text intelligible. What she gains is first a different reading experience, evoking a very visible horizontal quality of the text, its even set of letters and uninterrupted flow of words translating into a non-hierarchical mindset. What has been said about George’s poetry is true for Dündar’s writing as well: the small print together with avoiding all punctuation endows a text with an austere and at the same time solemn appearance. While she started out writing an extremely casual text, she took out most of the all too casual modal particles during the writing process, yet retaining the text’s personal, almost simplistic, colloquial register. This is balanced by the poetic form which creates an elevated tension. By virtue of all these elements and aspects, language becomes a strong tool that the translation needs to respect.
But how can that be achieved in a translation into English, where the capital initial letter is a rare thing, and an occasional ‘i’ instead of a capital ‘I’ will look like a misprint rather than a stylistic choice? Standard English writing ruled out applying the same device since it would disappear, would be undetectable, and that blade, so sharp in German, would, if employed literally, turn blunt in English. After much experimenting, I played with taking out not only the rare comma in the English translation but eventually all punctuation including apostrophes, reducing the ciphers on the page to letters only. And it turned out that there were very many apostrophes in ‘don’t’s and aren’t’s, given the colloquial nature of the play’s language, and also the ones indicating the possessive form. Taking them out created an artificiality on the page that felt very close to what Dündar had achieved in the German text, combining non-academic, everyday language with an ascetic quality of the reading experience. In places, Dündar’s choice of simplistic language to describe complex matters reminded me of my work with Susan Glaspell’s prose. Glaspell too, slipping into the minds of her often working-class characters, used simple language to describe complex or abstract phenomena. In Dündar’s play, this occasionally leads to repetitive terminology, creating a special rhythm.
From the outset, Joseph Megel of UNC in Chapel Hill, NC, and I designed the translation for a reading in The Process Series, which Joseph directs. During that process, Joseph and I taught a seminar on contemporary American drama at Humboldt University in Berlin as guest lecturers in 2022, including an grenzen and its translation. We both accompanied Özlem’s writing process over one and a half years, and during those seven weeks of teaching in Berlin, we repeatedly met with Özlem to discuss the play that was still in the making, analyze its context and language, and how it could be made relevant for a U.S. audience in an English translation. There is, for example, the extensive list of victims killed by right-wing violence. This non-narrative list of crimes in Germany since the middle of the 20th century takes up a relatively large portion of the play. Any production will be challenged with the task of dramatizing it, all the more so a production for an English language audience from a different cultural background. When it became obvious during our seminar that young Germans could not read the references to the 1990s violence, and that an American audience unfamiliar with German history would be much less able to follow those leads, the playwright decided to insert further historical information which helped a lot to contextualize the reference. The communication between Özlem and myself, between writer and translator shaped both the German and the English text.
From a line in the first drafts, Joseph suggested the English title body without borders. My colleague Neil Blackadder, who had translated other texts by the same writer, helped with a difficult passage. The play was first performed in a staged reading in The Process Series, directed by Joseph Megel, on April 20 and 21, 2023. The text was interpreted on stage by actress Sanjana Taskar.
Özlem Özgül Dündar, born 1983 in Solingen, works as a writer and performer. She writes plays, radio plays, essays, and poems. She is the author of “gedanken zerren“, poems (ELIF 2018), and editor, among others, of „Flexen – Flaneusen* schreiben Städte“, short prose by several female writers (Verbrecher 2019). These plays are currently playing: “an grenzen” (Staatstheater Wiesbaden) and “Mädchenschrift” (Lübeck Theater, Staatstheater Karlsruhe). She performs with her collectives Ministerium für Mitgefühl (Ministry of Empathy) and kollektiv flexen. Currently, she is a guest publisher with Elif Verlag. Selected awards: Kelag 2018, Kaas & Kappes 2024.
Henning Bochert works as a writer, lecturer, dramaturg, and translator in Berlin. Numerous German and international productions. Publications about theater and translation. Curator of several festivals. Seminars at Humboldt University in Berlin, Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Ruhr University in Bochum. Since 2007, he has been on the board of raum4 – netzwerk für künstlerische alltagsbewältigung e. v., and since 2009, of Drama Panorama: Forum for Translation and Theater e. V., an international platform for theater translators. He is a member the German Translators Association (BDÜ), the Association of German Language Translators of Literary and Scientific Works (VdÜ), of the Weltlesebühne, of the playwrights union VTheA, and of The Fence. From 2014-2019, he was a member of the German committee of the European network for drama in translation Eurodram. Publications, translations and productions here: http://www.henningbochert.de/en/
body w/o borders
a monologue
By Özlem Özgül Dündar
Translated from German by Henning Bochert
Translation:
Bochert Translations
Kiefholzstr. 1
12435 Berlin, Germany
henning@bochert.com
+49 30 48494673
Play:
Rowohlt Theater Verlag
https://www.rowohlt.de/verlag/right
maren.zindel@rowohlt.de
here i stand and you are standing next to me first you were standing farther away you have moved and i have moved we both set ourselves in motion we set our bodies in motion stood a little apart at first and are now standing close together so close that if we reached out we could touch each other so close that if we took another step a big step we would be standing nose to nose so close we would be able to smell each other although i think i can smell you even now very lightly i perceive a scent that must be coming from you it must be your scent that i am smelling you are the only one so close to me right now it can only be your odor that i smell right now a little bit of detergent in the air underneath a bit of a sweaty odor a little bit of sweat and deodorant very light but all that is not close to me yet it has not fully permeated my nose yet it is not yet everywhere the space is not quite full of your body odor we could be even closer so that we would really touch so that our noses had a moment of touching that is how close we could be but the moment we meet is really not that long it passes very quickly because because we do not take enough time when we meet enough time to talk to chat to exchange really looking at each other and taking in each others face the lines of the face age written into this face perhaps indicators of the character behind this face looking at each other to like see how that person laughs how he reacts what she sounds like what are they like what makes that person in front of me tick where is he from what does she do how does that person live we dont have the time for that and we dont have the patience nor do we have the ease not physically like our muscles they are not relaxed nor do we have the ease of mind like this meeting someone and being open for the encounter we are not open in our encounters this lightness is missing the lightness with which you meet others whom you dont know whom you may perhaps want to or could know that lightness that begins with a greeting something like a handshake or just a nod or a smile a friendly smile that has something inviting such a smile indicating that you are ready for this encounter that you are in the mood for it that you are glad to meet someone that you are ready now to listen to that person and their voice to take that in the way that person is and with that engage in an interaction and to tell or reveal something about yourself to present yourself with your voice and your ways your stories and perhaps even exchange something personal personal thoughts perhaps even tell someone something that shows who you really are and what makes you tick and to share something personal like signaling trust
actually our hands would have to reach out for each other for the hands but also for the other body hold it we should shake each other up to be so awake that we are fully there again you see stand clear as daylight in front of each other so we are awake really see the other one standing right in front of us so i would have to see that you are standing in front of me and you would have to see that i am standing in front of you with both eyes and with both hands too we would have to stand in front of each other in full perception of the other so that we could see each other in detail and as a whole it takes a certain proximity to communicate to talk to each other i mean in order to talk with each other we would have to stand in front of each other quite clearly clearly perceive each other we would first have to shake each other awake you see because that is something we dont think about and in order to think about it to think about that to talk to each other we first need to shake each other awake and i would have to do that with these hands do you see these hands my hands they may seem familiar look here take a good look you must have seen them often before although maybe not consciously looked at them during our previous encounters look you know my hands there are millions of them in germany they came a long way before arriving here and here their journey will always continue these are the recruited hands the hired hands and the hired bodies and the hired muscles this body these are the same hands that want to shake us awake so we will meet wide awake maybe you even recognize this body standing in front of you
do you remember when the bodies were rented how this renting procedure happened how it came about how it was in fact executed they were going to rent them for 10 or 20 years and then then they were supposed to be gone back to where they came from and where they came from is where lots of other things came from things you enjoy things in your kitchen in every kitchen like spices pepper which kitchen thats in use doesnt have pepper so pepper you like a nicely seasoned steak dont you or a tasty salad dressing yes well thats where that pepper comes from it grows where the rented bodies come from it goes on a nice long journey too until it arrives in your and in my kitchen and so these bodies are rented now and what do they do in the 10 to 20 years that they run around rented here to make your life beautiful those bodies stand at the conveyor belt at 6 in the morning and do piecework until their backs and necks hurt until their shoulders hurt and they do that every day day in day out every day really every single day because they also work on holidays to put aside money and they also work sundays to put aside money which they take back to the land of pepper and they simply always work until their backs go to waste until their shoulders cannot move anymore until every move of their necks sends little jabs of pain down through the body and what do these bodies do when they are not standing at the conveyor belt for example before 6 and in the time after 2 pm they eat and sleep and what else could such a body do all that time maybe this body will look for a place make himself at home in it will look for a partner and does what you would call building a future for yourself and it will make plans many many plans to build a house plans to go on vacation plans to have children plans to send these children to school and to university this body does all these things you know this you know these things thats how you do it so you know everybody knows you live have your daily routine make plans for the future imagine your future make plans that you adjust by and by to the circumstances to the people you are dealing with you adjust yourself you adjust your plans you adjust the calculations inside your head you change your plans according to the circumstances you have a plan to save money for example and buy a house back home but then you meet the love of your life two streets down and you marry then you make friends and you also love your old friends just like before but the new ones as well and which ones are more important who can make that decision and so you just stay where you are and adjust your plans you dream for example of a house back home with a garden and olive trees and mandarin trees and maybe even with one or two pepper plants and at some point you see in your dream a house on a small hill with an ivy bush on the walls and an apple tree in the garden and the name of the street then is not bekir sokak but berndstraße but by and large it is the same because in that house whether it is there or there still live the people you love and it is always a little walk over to your friends or a little way by car but otherwise it is by and large the same plans slowly change inside your head almost imperceptibly because you dont know it until you at some point see a house in your dreams that is very clearly made of bricks and standing on berndstraße with a bush or many bushes of ivy climbing up the walls
and at the office my mother not only signed a paper or filled out an application do you know what your heart does when you take such a step it just beats faster it races so damn fast the thyroid spills all kinds of hormones giving you a queasy feeling in your stomach and you get doubts and panic and then when you have stepped out from the office and the next day has come that feeling subsides only now and then the queasy feeling returns when you think of the office and what happened there that you submitted the paper with your signature and then you wait and think of the meaning of your signature on that paper until the day comes that my mother received her approval or the message because it can hardly have been hard to be accepted to that program it was a pretty sure bet but i can imagine that there might have been age restrictions and you had to be healthy my mother for example had to delay her immigration to germany the start of a new period in her life due to her high blood pressure but only for a few days maybe she simply was terribly excited at the medical exam you know because she didnt do that at her place of residence but in istanbul she had to travel there to take the plane or the train from there and the group she was supposed to travel with left by train a few days before she did without her she sat in istanbul a city she didnt know waiting for her heart to calm down and she didnt even know whether her hear would calm down and whether she might not even be able to make that trip or whether she maybe was not at the beginning of a new period in her life but simply had to go back home the home which she thought she would only see again in a few years and what may be going on in ones head then you are looking forward and are afraid of the trip and the new place youre going to and then maybe none of it happens because your heart wont calm down
the confidence that people had in this affair the trust that they put in the hands of the people inviting them here
you know to make such a step you do need to trust the people you will meet you need to trust the place the people in it its habits its customs to trat you well that you will be in good hands that you put your trust in good hands that the people inviting you will be good to you you have this trust in the people that entire affair this entire working situation and that you will remain unscathed throughout unscathed physically and psychologically because who goes places where you cant be safe or where you expect to be hurt you dont go there only when you can trust this place to ensure your integrity for these people may have come from poverty but they all had family they were not completely desperate or at the end of their wits they wouldn’t have passed the medical exam then anyway and hadnt gotten a place in the program they were able to come because they were in good shape physically and mentally people like that dont go anywhere in the world where they expect to be hurt they had hopes were confident and all these things they had in their luggage
and their hands make so much these hands hands and hands and so many hands of the parents their friends and cousins and sisters and brothers they work untiringly fulfilling the tasks they are given everything that is handed to them they process they are the hands and arms that build everything you see you see they are what everybody lives in even this space we are in where we are standing now these hands are what everybody moves around in what everybody sits on and what everybody sleeps on and what everybody drives to work with when you sit in your car seat when you feel the fabric on your skin the fabric the material of the seat that has been made by these hands look there do you see the hands look at my hands that is what they looked like and when you touch the steering wheel and turn it touch it with your fingers touch their work they made that wheel they installed it right there when you sit your friends and family down in your new car and go on a tour with them or go shopping in your car or take your kids to kindergarten then these hands will drive you there to your destinations in every-day life on vacation these hands it is into them you put your life and these hands just carry everybody and make everything everybody needs and they have been doing it for a very long time since 1961 to be precise and i understand the embarrassment that is in some way in it somehow in these hands and these bodies that are still around here everywhere and continue to be here and make simply everything and to acknowledge or express that neediness i understand that that comes with great shame who wants to be so needy and my parents and their entire generation who came here and now my generation we are practically the physical incarnation of this neediness and when you see that day in day out this embarrassment it pierces right through your eyes and even when you close your eyes as hard as you can the pupils will be pierced on both sides and it pierces through the closed eyelids that is how strong the stab is do you know how some plants arm themselves with spikes not to be plucked or trampled on or eaten that is how thick the spikes are and they pierce everything and when i think of this shame and all the things it does to you and to me my words break my language my words break i cannot speak my words are broken they often break dont come out in the first place they do not exist they do not enter the world they dont make it into the world they do not make it in the world to fall into the space called world they just dont want to fall they do not fall from my lips out of my mouth they do not roll off my tongue they get stuck there in my throat in my body they are stuck in the channels of my brain they are still stuck there in their primal form in their nonverbal primal form as thoughts ideas fleeting glimpses of an idea that cant even form in the first place because it does not find the words because it remains an idea a vague image of something
with her hands my mother pressed all kinds of small metal parts stainless silverware knives forks spoons scissors mostly knives and scissors these fine fingernail scissors you know them thats what she pressed that are shipped worldwide even today auto parts she pressed parts for car ventilation and round bent metal you cant tell what its meant for but she pressed that too at these massive machines that made the ground shake and she baked cookies who knows maybe your parents and grandparents have even eaten these cookies maybe even daily cookie cookie myum yummy i love cookies i imagine my mother having baked huge amounts of cookies every day covered with warm molten chocolate mmmyum
and my father built everything with his hands and his brother had built with his hands even before my father built here with his hands built these homes for example look there there and there everywhere around us the houses my father and his brother my uncle built with their hands their arms their legs and their backs on which they carried cement into the buildings and carried them up one floor after the other 50 kilograms per cement bag 50 kilos per bag how many bags does it take for one house a small one for example how are they carried there and on what backs the bags are smaller now only 25 kilos almost small enough for a person like me to carry so i could almost carry such a bag and i think that i am pretty strong for a woman but my back or my arms may just be able to handle 25 kilos once or twice or three times a day but only for a few meters and thats it then and if i had to carry them up to the second third fourth floor or higher id have just about enough with one 25 kilo bag and id need some time off after that
how heavy will a 25 kilo cement bag be like a 6 or 7 year old child maybe that will be about right but to carry a child up to the fourth floor is different id have the body tension that makes it easier and it would hold on to me i suppose but a bag of cement is uncomfortable to carry so it has to be on the back and you carry a child up to the fourth floor for example and put it in its little bed and then it sleeps and you may get ready for bed too but such a cement bag doesnt get you very far in building a house there will be maybe hundreds more to follow you really need a vacation after that for the rest of your life i would think wouldnt you but my father and my uncle did that as long as i can remember until their backs couldnt take it anymore
and do you see how the hands work how they slave away on and on how their muscles move how they strain to move how they pull and do and carry and drag and how their tendons stretch how they overstretch and work themselves raw how they keep the pain ointment always handy do you see the hands go to waste do you see the bodies go to waste do you see the skin rasped off the bodies standing at the conveyor belt doing piecework how raw they are worn raw at the levers and switches at the machines the work scrapes life off them the work scraping life off them in layers first the skin then the muscles then the bones the injuries from work penetrate right through to the bones the movements at the conveyor belt break their way into their bodies and through the layers of their bodies through the skin the muscles the bones and into the marrow of the bones that is how deep the movements of the belt break through down to the depths of their bodies they work themselves raw they do it for your pursuit of prosperity and your pursuit of luxury that luxury that eternal desire for luxury and abundance who does not have that desire to live in abundance of everything to have so much that you never need to worry about a thing the dream of unending luxury bathing and swimming in luxury and standing in a waterfall of luxury beating down and dropping warmly on the skin and dropping off the shoulders a pleasant tickle at the feet a bubble bath of luxury in which you feel yourself floating on clouds from which nothing will ever carry you away again from which nothing can tear you away which will simply be forever you know forever in all eternity until you are no more and much further even just on and on it goes going on so steadily that it even plays a trick on time it even survives time and exists longer than time itself longer than the universe and all the stars in it and longer even than god himself a jet of water without beginning or end its existence threatened by nothing and nobody it is simply eternal
i dont know whether you ever worked at a factory do you know those machines the smells the sounds that is a world of its own and in this world in the middle of it all i see my mother standing at the conveyor belt and she has pulled up her shirt up to her elbows and the elbows are uncovered that is how far the wounds go exactly to where she pulls up her shirt every day the blades of the knives find her skin the blades always land on her skin no matter how careful she is she watches the blades like crazy and keeps them away from herself from her skin as good as she can but they find their way to her skin again and again and blood on her fingertips and until she has learnt it she has cut her hands and got to know the blood of a human being from the various body parts and skin layers and she shows me and she teaches me and i remember with her what her blood looks like on her hand what her blood looks like inside her top skin layer what her blood looks like under the fat layer of her arm how she learns about the various states of her blood from bright red to dark red from liquid like water to thick like plum jam oozing like a foam bubble slowly growing from jam
during their journey these hands touch metal hard soft metal iron steel aluminum all forms of metal you can imagine and even more forms than one person will know in long and short sheets thick sheets thin sheets in rods in forms they are pressed they pass through the hands all forms pass through their hands and are cut sliced bored and pressed in all imaginable forms as are required for the beautiful products we all need and they are assembled to cars and machines and often to weapons too
we chat them away out of sight out of mind we chat them away make them disappear make the hands disappear and let the bodies disappear pretend as if they had never been there would never be there again we look away only look at the products take them for granted believes in magic that they materialize just like that in faraway worlds that are so far away that they have nothing to do with the here and now that they are so far away that they are hardly real and that the products materialize as if by magic and reach shops and the internet they are not produced you click them into existence and how much work can be in a thing that arrives at your door with one click
and sometimes i scan your face with my eyes see what is going on in that face i scan this face with my eyes your face in search for i dont know what
and at some point they did not like the hands anymore and at some point they were not fashionable enough anymore and did not fit the luxury all around or they were something that reminded too much of this feeling of shame that at some point had pierced you so or perhaps the hands were never anything anybody liked and were always meant to be gone gone out of sight out of mind gone like they never existed they were meant to work fast do one piecework shift after the other and then quickly disappear as if they had never existed and then these bodies that had slaved are attacked with blows with spit with fire and with bullets and the blows the spit the fire and the bullets they were meant to destroy the bodies when you look back to this country in the 90ies look back to recent years the fire comes rushing at you it hits you in the face but even without the fire they hit the bodies with their words the words are invisible but they are just as powerful as the fire do you know the kind of power i mean
and right here they put their words see the place where they put their words let them beat down and hit throw them down slam them and beat them see the place right there here between my eyes is the place right here on my temple is that place right here on my forehead in the middle of my forehead is that place do you see that place right here on my arm on my arm joint and i cannot move my arm anymore i am so raw on my legs on my feet on my knees on my hip on my buttocks on my back my shoulder my head on my eyes between my eyes on my eyes i cannot open my eyes anymore i cant smell anymore my nose is smashed and i cant hear anymore my ears are smashed and i cant speak anymore my mouth is clotted with blood and my mouth is full of blood and the organs in my body are so sore from the blows you see where the blows hit me sore i get and sore i am and my organs all break down all of me breaks down and is sore and destroyed
and there are so many weapons there are words like weapons there are fist blows and bats and clubs and pistols and there is fire this fire is a very special a concealed weapon and there is something concealed about an attack with fire you see a certain secrecy an attacker can hide behind fire always leaves room for doubt whether it might not have been an accident so aggressors are able to veil their actions and they did try to conceal their actions with their arson attacks in the 90s their attacks were concealed and now with the attacks in halle and hanau even that attempt is gone you understand they dont even keep up appearances and shoot with guns and bullets
and then at some point there is this list
and i read this list and take this list into my hand and read the names on it the names that accumulated collected become a list that by their number make up a list i take this list into my hand take the names into my hand between both hands hold it the names are in my hand and i see them with my eyes look at them the names i let my eyes my pupils pass over them up and down left and right i hold them in my hand let my eyes get used to them this sight of the names that become a list browse that list browsing and passing with my pupils over the numbers the dates the facts passing back and forth with my pupils over the names the letters that become names getting used to them passing over the numbers that become ages over the letters that become places names of places over the numbers that become years places names ages how many years had a person lived at this and that time how many years had a person already seen for how many years had a person already laughed and cried and for how many had a person known this world for example the list says 26 march 1998 saalfeld/saale jana georgi 14 so jana had known this world for 14 years the world we live in not mars or something but simply this world we live in this planet earth jana had had 14 years of experience here earth she had laughed and cried made and broken friendships had hoped and worried and was glad and had partied and erred and gotten lost and eaten and drunken slept celebrated teenage birthdays drunken coke eaten black forest cake and so forth and then on 26 march 1998 it ended she didnt get any day older after that she remained and will always remain 14 years old that was decided on 26 march 1998 in saalfeld/saale
i read the names and put them on my tongue rivka meir rosa arie david siegfried eliakim martin anka anton neset karl delfin raul rudi celalettin nguyen do gabriele robert axel markus ignatz ilona franz angela errol ernst beate shlomo frida and pronounce their letters f r i d a and pronounce their sounds i take a breath and say them with my breath i suck the air in with my lung and make it my breath which i exhale breathing with it the letters s i e g f r i e d the sounds of a name e l i a k i m your name eliakim georg pfau your name jana georgi and your name jana gundula klein and your name jana lange your name arthur lampel your name jeremiah duggan your name patricia wright your name christelle makodila nsimba and yours legrand makodila mbongo and yours jean-daniel makodila kosi 3 years old on 18 january 1996 in lübeck his experience on this planet was terminated i speak my lung breathing in air breathing out breath my mouth my lips my throat helping working together becoming one movement that makes your name for that world out there outside of me your name passing through me through my body saying it out loud let us say the names together let them pass through our bodies the list is long enough to practice it is long enough and will still become longer and i graze the sheets with the names on them and i feel their names these almost tactile objects that are their names their age the place they died the day they died these letters and figures summarizing their lives in short in shortest facts
and this is how the list starts
22 june 1966 dorfen andreas ostermeier 63
arson attack on the senior citizens home of the isrealite community in munich
13 february 1970 munich rivka regina becher 59
13 february 1970 munich meir max blum 71
13 february 1970 munich rosa drucker 59
13 february 1970 munich arie leib leopold gimpel 50
13 february 1970 munich david jakubovicz 60
13 february 1970 munich siegfried offenbacher 71
13 february 1970 munich eliakim georg pfau 63
29 august 1970 konstanz martin katschker 17
5 november 1972 niederthann anka denisov 18
31 may 1973 heidelberg anton lehmann 53
21 may 1974 norderstedt neset danis 30
8 may 1979 hagen karl mettbach 53
12 august 1979 merseburg delfin guerra 18
12 august 1979 merseburg raul garcia paret 21
24 december 1979 berlin rudi dutschke 39
5 january 1980 berlin celalettin kesim 36
assassination of hamburg-billbrook
23 august 1980 hamburg-billbrook nguyen ngoc chau 22
25 august 1980 hamburg-billbrook do anh lan 18
oktoberfest attack
26 september 1980 munich gabriele deutsch 17
26 september 1980 munich robert gmeinwieser 17
26 september 1980 munich axel hirsch 23
26 september 1980 munich markus hölzl 44
26 september 1980 munich paul lux 52
26 september 1980 munich ignatz platzer 6
26 september 1980 munich ilona platzer 8
26 september 1980 munich franz schiele 33
26 september 1980 munich angela schüttrigkeit 39
26 september 1980 munich errol vere-hodge 25
26 september 1980 munich ernst vestner 30
26 september 1980 munich beate werner 11
19 december 1980 erlangen shlomo lewin 69
19 december 1980 erlangen frida poeschke 57
1 january 1981 gündelbach sydi battal koparan 44/45
29 may 1981 hamburg johannes bügner 26
may 1982 hanover-garbsen indian man
22 june 1982 norderstedt tevfik gürel 26
24 june 1982 nuremberg william schenck 24
24 june 1982 nuremberg rufus surles 27
24 june 1982 nuremberg mohamed ehap 21
17 october 1982 hamburg adrian maleika 16
27 april 1984 munich corinna tartarotti 20
arson attack in duisburg-wanheimerort 1984
26 august 1984 duisburg döndü satir 40
26 august 1984 duisburg songül satir 4
26 august 1984 duisburg ümit satir 5
26 august 1984 duisburg cigdem satir 7
26 august 1984 duisburg zeliha turhan 18
26 august 1984 duisburg rasim turhan 15
26 august 1984 duisburg tarik turhan 50 days
25 september 1984 berlin fatma e.
24 july 1985 hamburg-langenhorn mehmet kaymakçı 29
24 december 1985 hamburg-hohenfelde ramazan avci 26
14 january 1986 hanover niels krückeberg 19
30 june 1986 borne antonio manuelo diogo 23
3 february 1987 hanover gerd-roger bornemann 17
19 august 1987 tübingen kiomars javadi 21
19 september 1987 stassfurt carlos conceicao 18
17 december 1988 schwandorf osman can 50
17 december 1988 schwandorf fatma can 43
17 december 1988 schwandorf mehmet can 12
17 december 1988 schwandorf jürgen hübener 47
12 may 1989 berlin ufuk şahin 24
27 july 1989 gelsenkirchen homeless man
august 1989 lüneburg birgit meier 41
1989 essen frank r. 22
6 march 1990 berlin mahmud azhar 40
1 july 1990 erfurt heinz mädel 58
7 october 1990 lübbenau andrzej fratczak 36
21 october 1990 ludwigsburg eberhard arnold 23
17 november 1990 kempten ercan s. 5
6 december 1990 eberswalde amadeu antonio 28
11 december 1990 klaus-dieter reichert 24
28 december 1990 hachenburg nihat yusufoğlu 17
1 january 1991 rosdorf alexander selchow 21
6 january 1991 flensburg lothar fischer 31
24 february 1991 delitzsch man from afghanistan 31
6 april 1991 dresden jorge gomondai 28
13 april 1991 rathenow a. rustanow
1 june 1991 leipzig gerhard sch. 43
4 juny 1991 kästorf (gifhorn) helmut leja 39
16 june 1991 friedrichshafen agostinho comboio 34
7. juli 1991 gelnhausen jonny braun 54
16 september 1991 schwedt wolfgang auch 28
19 september 1991 saarlouis samuel kofi yeboah 27
13 november 1991 berlin-charlottenburg mete ekşi 19
3 december 1991 hohenselchow gerd himmstädt 30
10 december 1991 munich romanian man
12 december 1991 meuro timo kählke 29
1991 berlin-neukölln yugoslavian man
5 january 1992 klein-mutz near gransee ingo ludwig 18
5 january 1992 augsburg nigerian man
11 january 1992 hanover male refugee
arson attack in lampertheim
31 january 1992 lampertheim man from sri lanka 29
31 january 1992 lampertheim woman from sri lanka 31
31 january 1992 lampertheim child from sri lanka 1
23 february 1992 frankfurt am main blanka zmigrod 68
4 march 1992 gifhorn matthias knabe 23
6 march 1992 reilingen turkish man
11 march 1992 schwedt melanie harke 13
15 march 1992 saal dragomir christinel 18
19 march 1992 flensburg ingo finnern 31
22 march 1992 buxtehude gustav schneeclaus 53
4 april 1992 hörstel erich bosse 46
24 april 1992 berlin-marzahn nguyễn văn tú 29
25 april 1992 werder an der havel peter konrad 31
11 may 1992 magdeburg torsten lamprecht 23
29 june 1992 nadrensee grigore velcu
29 june 1992 nadrensee eudache calderar
1 july 1992 neuruppin emil wendtland 50
8 july 1992 ostfildern-kemnat sadri berisha 56
1 august 1992 bad breisig dieter klaus klein 49
3 august 1992 stotternheim ireneusz szyderski 24
24 august 1992 koblenz frank bönisch 35
29 august 1992 berlin vietnamese man 29
5 september 1992 berlin-charlottenburg günter schwannecke 58
19 october 1992 berlin peruvian man 37
23 october 1992 frankfurt (oder) nigerian man
24 october 1992 geierswalde waltraud scheffler 44
november 1992 königs wusterhausen anti-faschist man
november 1992 königs wusterhausen anti-faschist man
7 november 1992 lehnin rolf schulze 52
13 november 1992 wuppertal karl-hans rohn 53
21 november 1992 berlin-friedrichshain silvio meier 27
21 november 1992 wülfrath alfred salomon 92
23 november 1992 mölln bahide arslan 51
23 november 1992 mölln yeliz arslan 10
23 november 1992 mölln ayşe yılmaz 14
6 december 1992 jänschwalde kroatian man
15 december 1992 weidenau (siegen) bruno kappi 55
15 december 1992 giessen man
17 december 1992 berlin-mitte gamal hegab 35
18 december 1992 oranienburg hans-jochen lommatzsch 55
27 december 1992 meerbusch sahin calisir 20
7 january 1993 wetzlar homeless man
15 january 1993 arnstadt karl sidon 45
22 january 1993 stassfurt romanian man 21
23 january 1993 freiburg kerstin winter 24
24 january 1993 schlotheim mario jödecke 23
3 february 1992 suhl olaf h.
22 february 1993 hangelsberg mabiala mavinga
25 february 1993 hoyerswerda mike zerna 22
9 march 1993 mülheim/ruhr mustafa demiral 56
12 march 1993 uelzen hans-peter zarse 18
29 march 1993 bad segeberg friedrich massling 58
27 april 1993 obhausen matthias lüders 23
29 april 1993 sondershausen sandro beyer 15
1 may 1993 berlin yilma wondwossen b. 31
20 may 1993 coburg man
21 may 1993 göttingen german soldier 20
26 may 1993 waldeck (mittenwalde) jeff dominiak 25
29 may 1993 solingen gürsün ince 27
29 may 1993 solingen hatice genç 18
29 may 1993 solingen hülya genç 9
29 may 1993 solingen saime genç 4
29 may 1993 solingen gülüstan öztürk 12
june 1993 oranienburg bernd z. 29
5 june 1993 fürstenwalde horst hennersdorf 37
10 june 1993 dresden mozambican
fire in shelter for homeless and foreigners siegburg
15 june 1993 siegburg female tenant 33
15 june 1993 siegburg female tenant 50
15 june 1993 siegburg mail tenant 42
15 june 1993 siegburg girl 10
15 june 1993 siegburg boy 12
17 june 1993 dülmen abdi atalan 41
20 june 1993 berlin-tempelhof hung va quang 26
21 june 1993 berlin-kreuzberg angela s. 29
21 june 1993 berlin-kreuzberg dario s. 2
28 june mühlhausen romanian man 26
16 july 1993 marl homeless man 33
28 july 1993 strausberg hans-georg jakobson 35
1 august 1993 uelzen male student 16
19 september 1993 werneuchen bei bernau horst t. 51
october 1993 marl homeless man 33
5 october 1993 bad wildungen man from sri lanka
5 october 1993 bad wildungen german woman
5 october 1993 bad wildungen child
10 october 1993 dusseldorf homeless turkish man
7 december 1993 hamburg-buchholz bakary singateh (kolong jamba) 19
25 december 1993 kaltenkirchen turkish man
26 january 1994 cologne jasminka jovanović 12
26 january 1994 cologne raina jovanović 62
1 february 1994 german cargo ship man from zaire
3 february 1994 berlin horst scharlach 60
4 february 1994 berlin-weißensee wolfgang o. 46
11 february 1994 hamburg-neugraben homeless man
18 february 1994 darmstadt ali bayram 50
16 march 1994 stuttgart-mitte ante b. 60
16 march 1994 stuttgart ljuba b. 55
16 march 1994 stuttgart zuzanna m. 57
16 march 1994 stuttgart athina s. 24
16 march 1994 stuttgart kristina s. 2
16 march 1994 stuttgart nebahat s. 27
16 march 1994 stuttgart aynül s. 4
20 april 1994 gieboldehausen albanian man 40
29 april 1994 göttingen turkish woman
5 may 1994 quedlinburg eberhart tennstedt 43
28 may 1994 leipzig klaus r. 43
15 june 1994 kyritz romanian man 19
22 june 1994 bochum esam chandin 9
june 1994 bochum mohamed badaoui
1 july 1994 hanover halim dener 17
20 july 1994 berlin-lichtenberg vietnamese man
23 july 1994 berlin-reinickendorf beate fischer 32
26 july 1994 berlin jan wnenczak 45
3 august 1994 leipzig vietnamese man 33
6 august 1994 velten gunter marx 42
27 august 1994 berlin homeless man 43
30 august 1994 frankfurt am main kola bankole 30
27 september 1994 magdeburg farid boukhit 30
28 september 1994 herford burkujie haliti 23
28 september 1994 herford navgim haliti 11
30 september 1994 völklingen refugee
30 september 1994 völklingen refugee
14 oktober 1994 paderborn alexandra rousi 62
6 november 1994 rotenburg an der fulda piotr kania 18
20 november 1994 zittau michael gäbler 18
24 december sengental-reichertshofen turkish man 38
24 december sengental-reichertshofen turkish child 5
4 january 1995 zell kosovar woman 2
4 january 1995 zell kosovar woman 4
5 february 1995 hennigsdorf guido zeidler 20
arson attack on container home in wedemark-mellendorf
8 january 1995 wedemark-mellendorf serbian woman
8 january 1995 wedemark-mellendorf serbian child
8 january 1995 wedemark-mellendorf serbian child
8 january 1995 wedemark-mellendorf serbian child
5 february velbert horst pulter 65
5 february 1995 hennigsdorf guido zeidler 20
4 june 1995 hohenstein-ernstthal peter t. 24
16 july 1995 altena dagmar kohlmann 25
29 august 1995 ulm man from ghana
29 august 1995 ulm man from chad
5 september 1995 lübeck turkish woman
5 september lübeck german man
7 september 1995 amberg klaus peter beer 48
15 october 1995 karlsruhe turkish man
15 october 1995 karlsruhe turkish man
15 october 1995 karlsruhe turkish man
november 1995 dresden michael silbermann 22
november 1995 dresden sven silbermann 24
17 december 1995 leipzig-großzschocher gerhard helmut b. 19
18 december 1995 oelde sanjib kumar shrestha 21
22 december grimma mario l. 15
24 december 1995 foreigners’ residential home bergkamen child
24 december 1995 foreigners’ residential home bergkamen child
24 december 1995 foreigners’ residential home bergkamen child
30 december 1995 leipzig-grünau horst k. 43
1995 duisburg-friemersheim african man
1995 emmerich african man
18 january 1996 lübeck monica maiamba bunga 27
18 january 1996 lübeck nsuzana bunga 7
18 january 1996 lübeck françoise makodila landu 32
18 january 1996 lübeck miya makodila 14
18 january 1996 lübeck christine makodila 17
18 january 1996 lübeck christelle makodila nsimba 8
18 january 1996 lübeck legrand makodila mbongo 5
18 january 1996 lübeck jean-daniel makodila kosi 3
18 january 1996 lübeck rabia el omari 17
18 january 1996 lübeck sylvio bruno comlan amoussou 27
3 february 1996 bergisch gladbach patricia wright 23
20 february 1996 brandenburg an der havel sven beuter 23
7 march 1996 bremen reinhard wojciechowski 47
15 march 1996 dorsten-rhade martin kemming 26
8 may 1996 leipzig bernd grigol 43
june 1996 lübeck male student
13 july 1996 wolgast boris morawek 26
19 july 1996 eppingen werner weickum 44
1 august 1996 eisenhüttenstadt andreas götz 36
23 october 1996 leipzig achmed bachir 30
1996 menden-lendrigsen ukrainian man 36
1 january 1997 greifswald horst d. 57
24 january 1997 magdeburg homeless man
8 february 1997 magdeburg frank böttcher 17
13 february 1997 caputh antonio melis 37
23 february 1997 autobahn rest stop roseburg/hornbek stefan grage 33
17 april 1997 berlin-treptow olaf schmidke 26
17 april 1997 berlin-treptow chris danneil 31
22 april 1997 sassnitz horst gens 50
22 april 1997 fredersdorf-vogelsdorf phan van toan 42
8 may 1997 königs wusterhausen augusttin blotzki 59
june 1997 leipzig male algerian refugee 40
4 june 1997 friedrichshafen/lake constance bektas heval 26
23 august 1997 potzlow male social worker 45
4 september 1997 nordhausen rolf baginski 55
23 september 1997 cottbus mathias scheydt 39
27 september 1997 cottbus georg jürgen uhl 49
17 october 1997 bochum josef anton gera 59
17 november 1997 anklam horst meyer 61
26 march 1998 saalfeld/saale jana georgi 14
30 august 1998 angermünde ernst fisk 59
23 december 1998 homeless shelter berlin-schöneberg homeless man
29 december 1998 merkkleeburg-gaschwitz nuno lourenço 49
february 1999 bestensee-pätz male shelter tenant
february 1999 bestensee-pätz male shelter tenant
13 february 1999 guben farid guendoul 28
17 march 1999 duisburg-walsum egon effertz 58
28 may 1999 frankfurt am main aamir ageeb 31
1 july 1999 köln erol ispir 33
10 august 1999 eschede peter deutschmann 44
15 august 1999 kolbermoor carlos fernando 35
3 october 1999 hohenstein-ernstthal patrick thürmer 17
6 october 1999 berlin-lichtenberg kurt schneider 38
8 october 1999 löbejün hans-werner gärtner 37
bad reichenhall rampage
1 november 1999 bad reichenhall karl-heinz lietz 54
1 november 1999 bad reichenhall daniela peyerl 18
1 november 1999 bad reichenhall horst zillenbiller 60
1 november 1999 bad reichenhall ruth zillenbiller 59
29 december 1999 halle-neustadt jörg danek 38/39
31 january 2000 weißwasser bernd schmidt 52
17 march 2000 berlin-wedding jugosloven (slovo) ignjatovic 51
29 april 2000 halberstadt helmut sackers 60
24 may 2000 berlin-buch dieter eich 60
31 may 2000 eberswalde falko lüdtke 22
14 june 2000 dessau alberto adriano 39
dortmund and waltrop police murders
14 june 2000 dortmund thomas goretzky 35
14 june 2000 waltrop yvonne hachtkemper 34
14 june 2000 waltrop matthias larisch von woitowitz 34
24 june 2000 greifswald klaus-dieter gerecke 47
9 july 2000 wismar jürgen seifert 52
24 july 2000 ahlbeck norbert plath 51
27 july 2000 dusseldorf-wehrhahn unborn child
15 august 2000 greifswald jana gundula klein 24
11 september 2000 nürnberg enver şimşek 38
13 september 2000 schleswig malte lerch 45
5 october 2000 freiberg homeless man
8 october 2000 neu-isenburg aysel özer 22
8 october 2000 neu-isenburg seydi vakkas özer 47
4 november 2000 belzig belaid baylal 42
25 november 2000 greifswald eckhardt rütz 42
march 2001 grimmen fred blank 51
28 march 2001 milzau willi worg 38
22 april 2001 jarmen mohammed belhadj 31
24 may 2001 bad blankenburg axel urbanietz 27
13 june 2001 nürnberg abdurrahim özüdoğru 49
27 june 2001 hamburg-bahrenfeld süleyman taşköprü 31
6 july 2001 witten frank h. 33
9 august 2001 wittenberge klaus-dieter harns 61
9 august 2001 dahlewitz dieter manzke 61
17 august 2001 fulda dorit botts 54
29 august 2001 münchen habil kılıç 38
9 september 2001 bräunlingen arthur lampel 18
9 september 2001 walow-strietfeld yvonne polzin 31
5 november 2001 berlin-hellersdorf ingo binsch 36
15 may 2002 neubrandenburg klaus-dieter lehmann 19
23 may 2002 wittstock kajrat batesov 24
1 june 2002 neu mahlisch ronald masch 29
30 june 2002 wurzen christa g. 64
13 july 2002 potzlow marinus schöberl 16
10 august 2002 sulzbach ahmet sarlak 19
27 november 2002 altdorf zygmunt rudnicha 53
27 december 2002 stralsund wolfgang h. 35
25 january 2003 erfurt hartmut balzke 48
21 march 2003 naumburg andreas oertel 40
27 march 2003 wiesbaden jeremiah duggan 22
29 march 2003 frankfurt (oder) enrico schreiber 25
22 april 2003 riesa günter t. 35
10 july 2003 scharnebeck gerhard fischhöder 49
4 october 2003 leipzig thomas k. 16
overath murders
7 october 2003 overath hartmut nickel 61
7 october 2003 overath alja nickel 26
7 october 2003 overath mechthild bucksteeg 53
kandel (palatinate) arson attack
6 december 2003 kandel petros c. 22
6 december 2003 stefanos c. 23
heidenheim disco murders
19 december 2003 heidenheim viktor filimonov 15
19 december 2003 heidenheim waldemar ickert 16
19 december 2003 heidenheim aleksander schleicher 17
20 january 2004 gera/bieblach-ost oleg valger 27
31 january 2004 burg martin görges 46
25 february 2004 rostock mehmet turgut 25
5 june 2004 güsten edgar r. 47
january 2005 stuttgart disabled homeless man
18 february 2005 magdeburg homeless man 51
28 march 2005 dortmund thomas schulz 32
9 june 2005 nuremberg ismail yaşar 50
15 june 2005 munich theodoros boulgarides 41
1/3 july 2005 essen homeless man 44
26 november 2005 bad buchau tim maier 20
1 march 2006 rheda-wiedenbrück fevzi ufuk 68
4 april 2006 dortmund mehmet kubaşık 39
6 april 2006 kassel halit yozgat 21
6 may 2006 plattling andreas pietrzak 41
10 july 2006 cottbus jürgen g. 51
september 2006 frankfurt (oder) hans-jürgen sch. 56
1 january 2007 wismar andreas f. 30
25 april 2007 heilbronn michèle kiesewetter 22
14 july 2007 brinjahe m. s. 17
24 july 2007 blankenburg (harz) homeless man 59
7 september 2007 hanover jenisa muja 8
7 october 2007 frankfurt (oder) holger urbaniak 49
residential home fire in ludwigshafen on rhine
3 february 2008 ludwigshafen ilyas calar 2
3 february 2008 ludwigshafen kennan kaplan 2
3 february 2008 ludwigshafen kamil kaplan 3
3 february 2008 ludwigshafen karanfil kaplan 4
3 february 2008 ludwigshafen dilara kaplan 11
3 february 2008 ludwigshafen döne kaplan 21
3 february 2008 ludwigshafen hülya kaplan 31
3 february 2008 ludwigshafen medine kaplan 48
3 february 2008 ludwigshafen belma özkapli 22
20 february 2008 leer bianca b. 27
26 april 2008 memmingen peter siebert 40
22 july 2008 templin bernd köhler 55
1 august 2008 dessau hans-joachim sbrzesny 50
6 august 2008 berlin ngyuyen tan dung 19
16 august 2008 magdeburg rick langenstein 20
24 august 2008 bernburg marcel wisser 18
6 september 2008 leipzig karl-heinz teichmann 59
17 january 2009 ilmenau lars r. 28
1 july 2009 dresden marwa el-sherbini 31
3/4 october 2009 limburg andy schubert 45
14 may 2010 hemer sven m. 27
22 may 2010 kamp-lintfort klaus b. 51
24 october 2010 leipzig kamal kilade 19
9 march 2011 wiesbaden kestutis v.
27 march 2011 neuss duy-doan pham 59
1 june 2011 oschatz andré kleinau 50
4 october 2011 laichingen mühittin l. 44
5 april 2012 berlin-neukölln burak bektaş 22
17 june 2012 suhl klaus-peter kühn 59
30 september 2012 butzow karl heinz lieckfeldt 59
27 october 2012 hanover andrea b. 44
17 july 2013 kaufbeuren konstantin moljanov 34
24 january 2014 mönchengladbach-rheindahlen dorothea s.
14 march 2014 herford dano m. 5
23 october 2014 limburg charles werabe 55
20 september 2015 berlin luke holland 31
1 february 2016 berlin-charlottenburg jim reeves 47
munich attack 2016
22 july 2016 munich sevda dag 45
22 july 2016 munich hüseyin dayicik/chousein daitzik 17
22 july 2016 munich selcuk kilic 15
22 july 2016 munich giuliano josef kollmann 19
22 july 2016 munich can leyla 15
22 july 2016 munich janos roberto rafael 15
22 july 2016 munich armela segashi 14
22 july 2016 munich sabine sulaj 14
22 july 2016 munich dijamant zabergja 20
10 september 2016 waldbröl klaus b. 40
20 september 2016 berlin-lichtenberg eugeniu botnari 34
20 october 2016 georgensgmünd daniel ernst 32
13 november 2016 cologne homeless man 29
december 2016 gersthofen beate n. 49
december 2016 gersthofen elke w. 50
1 march 2017 döbeln ruth k. 85
18 april 2017 cottbus shaden m. 22
8 may 2017 homburg/saar-schwarzenacker ramona sorce 42
23 september 2017 köln atilla özer
8 december 2017 katlenburg-lindau christian sonnemann 37
5 february 2018 plauen german woman 22
5 february 2018 plauen german man 25
1 april 2018 bergisch-gladbach bilal a. 30
17 april 2018 neunkirchen-wiebelskirchen philipp w. 38
18 april 2018 aue (saxsony) christopher w. 27
26 april 2019 hamburg-eppendorf william tonou-mbobda 34
2 june 2019 istha walter lübcke 65
20 july 2019 erfurt man 32
halle (saale) attack 2019
9 october 2019 halle (saale) jana lange 40
9 october 2019 halle (saale) kevin schwarze 20
hanau attack 2020
19 february 2020 hanau gökhan gültekin 37
19 february 2020 hanau ferhat unvar 22
19 february 2020 hanau hamza kurtović 22
19 february 2020 hanau mercedes kierpacz 35
19 february 2020 hanau sedat gürbüz 30
19 february 2020 hanau kalojan welkow 32
19 february 2020 hanau vili viorel păun 23
19 february 2020 hanau fatih saraçoğlu 34
19 february 2020 hanau said nessar el hashemi 21
19 february 2020 hanau gabriele rathjen 72
12 february 2020 altenburg mario k. 52
7 april 2020 celle arkan hussein khalaf 15
16 may 2020 dortmund ibrahim demir 41
14 july 2020 mahlow noël martin 61
18 september 2021 idar-oberstein alexander w. 20
family murders königs wusterhausen-senzig
4 december 2021 linda richter 40
4 december 2021 leni richter 10
4 december 2021 janni richter 8
4 december 2021 rubi richter 4
24 january 2022 heidelberg female student 23
10 february 2023 berlin-französisch buchholz yazy almiah 44
now i need i need to just i need to just need to stop for a moment i need a break i need to catch my breath breathe for a second calm down collect myself hold it for a moment things can just wait everything can wait a moment of silence when all stops and is still
pause
i breathe in and out almost like meditating i breathe deeply in and out
pause
i breathe deeply in and out before i continue
pause
and what i really cant help noticing some of them are so young like songül for example she is 4 and saime genc is also 4 the two could play catch in kindergarten or play house or dario s. 2 and kristina s. 2 and aynül s. 4 rubi richter 4 and jean-daniel mokodila kosi 3 dano m. 5 legrand makodila mbongo 5 and ercan s. 5 and ümit satir 5 maybe even ignatz platzer 6 all children in kindergarten
and an child from sri lanka one year old probably still with mommy and daddy but maybe with his or her day nanny or maybe also in kindergarten already that was a really great time i think you play all day and eat and drink and play and all that with so many other small children like yourself you quarrel too of course there is always quarrel no matter what age but in retrospect a wonderful time i felt anyway and all have baby faces
and then there are michael silbermann and sven silbermann the facts on the list say they were 22 and 24 years old in november 1995 and i know and we all at once know that they are brothers thats how simple people are there is one other option at best and thats that they are cousins there are no other options at least not in 1995 because they couldnt have been married in 1995 that is how simple people are they are one way or the other clearly family clear as daylight cant be more obvious thats how simple that is and the list says november 1995 dresden thats what the list says so michael and sven died in november 1995 in dresden most likely brothers at the age of 22 and 24 they will have lived as brothers until then knowing each other all their lives so they had been laughing and crying together on this planet for 22 years they had the same parents or the same mother or the same father and maybe they even had other siblings or they had mutual friends went to the same kindergarten they celebrated christmas together gave each other silly presents like socks and drank beer and partied probably fought a few times very hard and so forth and so forth and then they died together in november 1995 as violent crime victims and although it is unknown how many other people had a hand in their death we do know pretty well that with two young men there must have been at least two people involved in the deaths of michael and sven and even though the list doesnt give the exact date on which they died the list makes it very clear that it must have been the same day there is no other option popping up in my little human head because thats how simple people are and thats how simple lists made by people are
and the lists keep growing and they are alive they have a life of their own they become something else a living thing because they can grow and they do they change they do something to themselves to the names the places they mix everything in one kneading everything together
and thats how the list is alive by growing things togetherwordstogether belzig balaidbelaid baylal greifswald eckhardt rütz milzau willi worg jarmen mohammed beljadjbelhadj bad blankenburg axel urbanietz nürnberg abdurrahim özüdoğru hamburg-bahrenfeld süleyman taşköprü wittenberge klaus-dieter harns dahlewitzharns dahlewitz dieter manzke fulda dorit botts münchen habil kılıç and the list makes everything in one do you still hear a difference between the places and the names do you hear different things i only hear one thing a place or a name the names are engraved into the places and the words engraved into the names so it is ROSTOCK MEHMET TURGUT and together they are one indivisible in all lists following this one in all eternity and when we memorize the list we memorize it as one and there is no other way to read it than this because this list is meant for eternity and this new history is carved from my rib scratched out of it you see this new history is carved out of my broken rib from the bone fragments you see them the fragments between my ribs the broken ones ALTENBURG MARIO K. CELLE ARKAN HUSSEIN KHALAF DORTMUND IBRAHIM DEMIR MAHLOW NOËL MARTIN IDAR-OBERSTEIN ALEXANDER W. ANGERMÜNDE ERNST FISK MARKKLEEBURG-GASCHWITZ NUNO LOURENҪO GUBEN FARID GUENDOUL DUISBURG-WALSUM EGON EFFERTZ FRANKFURT ON MAIN AAMIR AGEEB KÖLN EROL ISPIR ESCHEDE PETER DEUTSCHMANN KOLBERMOOR CARLOS FERNANDO HOHENSTEIN-ERNSTTHAL PATRICK THÜRMER BERLIN-LICHTENBERG KURT SCHNEIDER LÖBEJÜN HANS-WERNER GÄRTNER
and i need a break again the mass of names crushes me every time
pause
their names are like a landscape of names an area ever growing in size
and between these names of the dead there are reams of others that do not appear on this list because they did not die but got away injured they are not on this list but in other lists existing too and then there are the names that appear on no list at all because they belong to people how neither died nor were physically injured but hit with words what the words do to them doesnt appear in lists because words are the everyday weapons of language words hitting the skin and penetrating the brain words saying i should not live here i should not live not sleep not eat not drink here that i should do nothing here i shouldnt even breathe i should simply do nothing the words penetrate me and take hold in me they run through my nerves and want to eat at me they want to nibble at me pieces that belong to me that are of me that make me that are of me gnaw off between their teeth they want to gnaw grind down grind between their teeth and process to the smallest particles and gnaw away do away make me disappear they want to make me disappear
and the words hit the cells press through the cell walls straight into the brain straight into me into what is me that is where i am made with these words i am made there what i am is made my stuff my core my essence my character my soul what i am what i am made of right there the words press in and make who i am if i swallow the words i will be lost if i swallow the words i will be lost
metals are delivered into the factories and are formed inside and some metals are formed into circles circular forms into rounds that fit into weapons to be shot out bullets made to enter bodies perforate them break their skin their muscles break their bones to break through them to break them
and many stand silent in front of these words that drill through bodies and the injured and wounded bodies and they are silent their mouths simply motionless in these situations there is a paralysis a paralysis located precisely in the lips and in the throat or sometimes in the legs and arms but most often in the region of the mouth so i see how people dont talk for example and are silent but still able to keep walking so most often the paralysis or the muteness is not in their legs and arms but only in the region of their mouths i also see the people watching so they walk and watch and their eyes are directly looking at that thing but they keep walking or briefly stop but because of a very very brief confusion and the confusion is probably thats how i figure it something so genuinely human in the brain well we have not mutated that far yet that we show no reaction at all i mean the body does still react to it but only for the shortest instant and then the legs and arms and feet and whatever is part of this body-walks-away-action doesnt skip a beat all that it just keeps going so short is this show-a-reaction mechanism that may still exist in us from evolution and then you turn that off and just quickly move your body out of this situation i mean out of there quickly quickly away from it this paralysis these silent mouths thats where you can find them and paralysis is really the wrong word no i really mean muteness it is silence not paralysis but muteness there is something active about it so much more active than paralysis paralysis that is something one is entirely overcome by something you cannot do anything about a situation in which you are remote-controlled no thats not it either you are left prey to the malfunction of your body and you are not master or mistress of the situation but these mute mouths they are like that because they choose to be silent they really are masters and mistresses of their muscles and fully aware that they should say something simply shut these mouths they remain closed locked simply closed not a peep
and my words break off and they remain unspoken and these incomplete broken words do not enter the world and remain inside me there at their origin and the words stack up unspoken and instead of falling into the world and moving around and unfolding there they are stuck inside of me falling into me into my parts into my cells blocking everything in there blocking me they make me stiff and rigid more and more of them so many words clogging inside of me until there is no more room for them and then they break my body from the inside and break me as a whole my soul and all of me
you understand i break from the world and i am stuck inside of me in a vessel stuffed with words and almost popping wanting to tear it open and always remaining there almost a-popping and although there is no more room more words keep coming and still more an endless stream of words from an endless wound here and everywhere on my body i see your face more clearly now when we met today i saw you for the first time i see you with different eyes today they can see sharper or im seeing in a different way or use them differently or you have stood in front of me a long time showed me your face so i could study it so i had time to look at it and take in the lines of your face to examine the wrinkles around your eyes the movements of your face thats what you stood here for and gave me time for thats did differently today we took some time meeting and now i dont only smell sweat and deodorant and detergent but you its not individual things i smell but now i smell you and now i dont see a face two hands and arms and legs but you i see you now thats what we did differently today at first we stood across from each other two people hardly knowing each other and we both did this so first we stood we both stood facing each other looking at each other i looked at you and you looked at me we looked at each other we did that together i you then i again and again you and at the same time we scanned each other with our eyes felt each other with our hands first i looked at you or no first you looked at me or something we stood together in the same space looking at each other first you came or i came first first i stood here or you stood and we both stood here first you or i then i no you or the other way round we looked at each other and examined each other and even observed each other you gave me time to examine you and i gave you time to examine me we both gave ourselves time to take in the face of the person in front of us and the body the presence of that body we gave each other time for that first we looked examined observed skeptically maybe there was some skepticism in our eyes at first it adhered to our eyes on our eyes in our eyes but then i got used to looking at you and you got used to it and we got used to looking at each other and deal with each others presence to accept that we stood across from each other because we usually dont do that we dont usually meet so directly face to face and not for so long either and not with the others gaze fully on us we usually dont do that
The Mercurian 