Jorge Gomondai

Jorge João Gomondai ( ˈʒɔɾʒ (ɨ) gomondai ) (born December 27, 1962 in Chimoio , Mozambique ; † April 6, 1991 in Dresden ) was the first to be killed in a racist attack in Dresden after the reunification of Germany .

Life

Commemorative plaque at the house at Holbeinstrasse 42

Jorge Gomondai was born in Chimoio, Mozambique, in 1962, where he grew up with parents and a brother. The family experienced the civil war in the country and moved several times in the region. Gomondai came to the GDR as a contract worker in 1981 at the age of 18 . He first lived in a home for foreigners in Dresden and worked in the Dresden slaughterhouse . Most recently he lived in an apartment at Holbeinstrasse 42.

Raid

On the night of Easter Sunday 1991, Jorge Gomondai got into the last car of a tram in Dresden's Neustadt . It was around 4 a.m. when a group of around 14 clearly right-wing youths entered the same car at Albertplatz . These had been observed by a police patrol since the previous evening, as they had rioted through the north of Dresden. Immediately after boarding, Gomondai was racially insulted and attacked by some young people from the group.

About 150 meters after leaving the stop, the tram driver noticed that a door in the last car was opened during the journey. She slowed down the train, got out and found Jorge Gomondai lying bleeding on the ground next to the tracks. A taxi that happened to be passing by also stopped at the crime scene. While the taxi driver called the police, the two inmates provided first aid .

Jorge Gomondai was immediately taken to the Dresden Medical Academy and operated on several times. The 28-year-old did not wake up from unconsciousness and died after almost a week on April 6, 1991 as a result of his head injuries. His coffin was transferred to Chimoio .

On April 11, 1991, Gomondai was commemorated at a funeral service in the Kreuzkirche . Then the 7,000 visitors to the service moved to the place between Hauptstrasse and Albertplatz where Gomondai had been pushed off the tram. Disturbances caused by right-wing radicals armed with chains and batons, who shouted fascist slogans to visitors to the service, were stopped by the police after fights.

Police investigation and trial

The police investigations were partly inadequate. Since the police officers on site assumed an alcohol-related fall, hardly any traces were secured and no witnesses were heard. The police only resumed investigations after the media interest caused by Gomondai's death, which dragged on for over two years.

The trial against the suspects took place under public pressure not at the Dresden district court , but at the Dresden regional court . The entire trial turned out to be extremely difficult, as the investigation was accompanied by a number of failures: Due to the inadequate securing of evidence and the lack of personal questioning directly at the crime scene, the investigating authorities needed a considerable amount of time to find suspects and witnesses. In addition, a video film of the later perpetrators was deleted without evaluation, the railroad car was scrapped in the meantime without further securing of evidence, and an interrogation protocol was assessed as invalid due to missing signatures. Right-wing extremist supporters repeatedly disrupted the process by directly attending the hearing or appearing as alleged witnesses during the trial.

Until shortly before the end of the trial, the public prosecutor assumed that Gomondai himself had jumped off the track out of panic on the night of the crime, a dropout from the neo-Nazi scene testified during the trial that Gomondai “at knife point to the fatal jump out of the moving Tram was forced ”. Ultimately, however, according to the court, it could not be finally clarified whether Gomondai jumped off track, whether he fell or was pushed.

The trial ended in October 1993 with the conviction of three defendants: the main defendant was sentenced to two years and six months' imprisonment. The two co-defendants received a suspended sentence of one year and six months and a fine. In all three cases the court went beyond the prosecution's request. The investigations against eight other suspects were stopped in advance.

Commemoration

Gomondai memorial stone in Dresden

Every year on the anniversary of Jorge Gomondai's death there is a memorial service followed by a demonstration at the crime scene. This day is organized by the Ausländerrat Dresden e. V. as well as church and human rights groups. During the so-called “Gomondai Remembrance Week”, which begins on April 7th, other events take place at irregular intervals, including exhibitions on the memory of Gomondai. The “Gomondai Cup”, a football game organized by the Dresden Foreigners Council and the DSC fan project , took place in 2008 for the eighth time.

A memorial plaque has existed on Jorge Gomondai's former home in Holbeinstrasse since 1993. In the same year, a memorial stone was inaugurated at the scene of the crime, which initially had a provisional character as a "stumbling block", but has since been used as a permanent memorial site. The memorial stone was desecrated and knocked over several times.

In 1995 Monika Hielscher and Matthias Heeder finished the documentary Jorge and premiered on the fourth anniversary of Gomondai's death. During the shooting, the filmmakers encountered a wall of silence as many witnesses refused to speak publicly for fear of right-wing extremist reprisals. At the same time, Jorge Gomondai's parents only learned of the complete circumstances of his death while filming in Mozambique.

Following a proposal by the City of Dresden's Foreigners' Advisory Council, the City Council decided in 2006 to name the square in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene in Jorge-Gomondai-Platz . It was inaugurated on March 30, 2007 in the presence of the mother and a brother of Jorge Gomondai and the Mozambican ambassador Carlos dos Santos. It was the first time nationwide that a square was named after a victim of racist violence.

literature

• Skinhead victim dies after being attacked . In: Die Tageszeitung , April 9, 1991.
• Sylvia Protze: Mocambiquan murder causes consternation . In: Saxon newspaper . April 10, 1991.
• Everyday hunting scenes. Skinheads and neo-Nazis overrun Dresden. Her first victim was an African . In: Der Spiegel . No. 16 , 1991, pp. 112 ( online ).
• Gomondai memorial approved, perpetrators should finally go to court . In: Saxon newspaper . March 31, 1993.
• Gomondai apparently mistreated . In: Junge Welt . October 1, 1993.
• Michael Bartsch: Unexpected judgment on pretty shaky feet . In: Junge Welt . October 30, 1993.
• Frank Berno Timm: The film for Jorge Gomondai seems to fail because of fear . In: Saxon newspaper . 29./30. January 1994.
• Detlef Krell: Jorge - a film about the victim of hatred . In: Die Tageszeitung , April 10, 1995.
• Web documentation: Against Us. The racist murder of Jorge Gomondai

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Detlef Krell: Jorge - a film about the victim of hatred . In: taz , April 10, 1995, p. 4.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Michael Bartsch: Torn from oblivion . In: taz , March 31, 2007, p. 2.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Everyday hunting scenes . In: Der Spiegel , No. 16, 1991, p. 112.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Judgments in the Gomondai Trial . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . Vol. 43, No. 253, October 30, 1993, p. 1.
5. ↑ Three right-wing extremists convicted of negligent homicide. Mozambicans fell off the tram in an argument . In: Tagesspiegel , No. 14722, October 30, 1993.
6. ↑ Fan project organizes Gomondai Cup . In: Sächsische Zeitung , April 12, 2008, p. 18.
7. ↑ Location: at the northern end of the main street , between Albertplatz and the development of Am Schwarzen Tor ( ^▼ )