On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the racist riots in Rostock-Lichtenhagen, Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth called for a lively culture of remembrance. “The racist riots in Rostock-Lichtenhagen triggered a whole chain of xenophobic violent excesses in the reunified Federal Republic,” said the Greens politician.
“We must and should also keep alive the memory of this dark chapter in Germany’s present.” This includes places of remembrance as well as scientific institutions for the documentation and processing of right-wing terrorism.
Roth also called for more visibility of social diversity in the media and up-to-date educational opportunities on the topics of racism and right-wing extremism. She criticized that the suffering of the victims and survivors of right-wing extremist terror still receives too little public attention. “We have to change that.”
From August 22 to 26, 1992, right-wing extremists and onlookers kept gathering at the so-called sunflower house in the Rostock district of Lichtenhagen, which housed the central reception center for asylum seekers and Vietnamese contract workers. Stones and incendiary devices were thrown, racist slogans were shouted, and the fire brigade was obstructed. The police failed to stop the riots. (dpa)
