I don’t think we ever hear the name of the murderer in this documentary. His manifesto, the existence of which is mentioned only to denounce the police inactivity when it was first discovered (before the shootings), is never cited. The killer is denied, at least here, the glory of those who insert themselves into the history books solely by pulling a trigger.
But the names of the victims are repeated throughout. Inspired by the tactics of American anti-racists, a group of survivors and relatives adopt the slogan #SayTheirNames, collectively calling these names out at rallies, and putting up this slogan in neon above their meeting place.
Their activism, which was a reaction to the lack of official action, transparency and justice, has been unwavering for almost five years now, during which Polish-born German director Marcin Wierzchowski (né 1984) follows them from official meeting to official meeting, where politicians and other dignitaries express their sympathy and promise swift action, only to eventually admit, also in front of Wierzchowski’s camera, that many questions still remain unanswered.
When Wierzchowski, who lives nearby, first heard about the murders in Hanau, he went there immediately. Without a clear plan, he began filming public gatherings and contacting friends in the area. After a while, the families of victims approached him, asking him to document what was happening, and significantly, what wasn’t. This led initially to Wierzchowski’s short documentary Das Attentat von Hanau (2021), then to the medium-length follow-up Hanau – Eine Nacht und ihre Folgen (2021) and now to this feature film on the subject.
This way, Wierzchowski created his own monument to the victims of Hanau. A monument about fighting for a monument, as towards the end, the documentary focuses on the families’ attempts to have a memorial erected in Hanau for their lost loved ones. The mayor seems sympathetic to the idea, but fears opposition from the local population if it were, as the families request, placed on the central Market Square.
On that square stands a statue of Hanau’s most famous children, the Brothers Grimm. Its pedestal reads: ‘Den Brüdern Grimm. Das Deutsche Volk’, which translates as ‘To the Brothers Grimm. [From] the German people.’
Which begs the question: who qualifies to be one of these German people? Aren’t our children also children of Hanau, their grieving parents ask, desperation seeping into their voices. It is the key question: do most of the inhabitants of Hanau consider these victims and their families, with their migrant backgrounds, to be equal members of their community? As one victim’s brother pleads: “It isn’t just ours, it is a memorial for the whole City of Hanau. It didn’t just happen to our families. Something happened to the entire City of Hanau.”
Does everyone in Hanau feel this way? Or do most of them, although they would never pull the trigger themselves, still regard these families as ‘others’, as second-class citizens – worthy of a monument, sure, but somewhere a little bit out of sight?
It is a question that is painfully relevant today, with the far-right AfD polling second in Germany’s general election on 23 February 2025 (and given the German taboo against expressing support for the far right, these polls probably underestimate its popularity). Meanwhile, the far right is on the rise not just in Germany (although its Nazi history and central role in Europe make it particularly unsettling), but around the world.
Wierzchowski’s use of black and white imagery can be seen as underlining this universality, as it tends to abstract the film from the specifics of its surroundings. Still, I consider this stylistic choice misguided. As the families keep repeating: these aren’t just random ‘foreigners’, as the perpetrator would have it, these are specific individuals with specific lives, names and families, belonging to a specific community.
It’s as German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier admits at the beginning: this wouldn’t have happened to him, with his white skin: “I don’t know how it feels to struggle your whole life long to finally belong to a society.”
Shooting in black and white not only generalises where the relatives are fighting for their recognition as individuals, creating distance where they seek community, it also obscures this clear difference in skin colour – and thereby the real racist reason for these deaths.
The German word for ‘memorial’ is Mahnmal, which has the connotation of not only a reminder, but also an admonition. It is meant to look to the future, as well as to help people acknowledge the past.
But when you see how often survivors and relatives had to repeat the same questions, the same stories, year after year – with a combination of emotional intensity and restraint from which politicians could learn a thing or two – and still have to do their own research (with the help of the ever-great Forensic Architecture), still have to build their own memorials with flowers, candles and photographs, still have to go to these seemingly fruitless meetings with politicians to ask for ‘Remembrance, Justice, Clarification, Consequences’, you might end up feeling as much despair as admiration.
Especially when you know that the SWAT team stationed in Hanau that day was later disbanded when the neo-Nazi sympathies of its members came to light. And that support for the AfD is far from waning…
Germany, 2025, 132 minutes
Director Marcin Wierzchowski
Production milk&water
Producers Marcin Wierzchowski, Pola Sell, Dorothea Braun, Kurt Otterbacher, Julius Theiss
Script Marcin Wierzchowski
Cinematography Marcin Wierzchowski, Peter Peiker
Editing Stefan Oliveira-Pita
Sound design Matz Müller, Ole Ohlendorf, Paul Rischer, Hendrik Jurich, Paul Ziesche
Music Louisa Beck, Kaan Bulak
