TiroFijo
12-21-2017, 07:41 AM
Der Spiegel (well known center/left magazine) article:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/christmas-market-attack-survivors-feel-abandoned-a-1183202.html
"A year has passed since the terrorist attack on the Christmas market at Berlin's Breitscheidplatz and the memorial ceremony has been scheduled to mark the end of a year of mourning. But the weight of that attack and what has come since cannot simply be neatly relegated to the past. Twelve people died on the night of the crime and close to a hundred people were injured and some of the victims are still in clinics today. And few have been able to overcome their loss -- either to their personal health or the loss of a family member. Most wounds are far from being healed.
But when you meet with the victims' relatives, many are quick to report about something very different that happened after the attack. They speak of their disappointment, of a government that failed in their eyes. They decry a state that failed to prevent a terrorist from perpetrating an attack right in the middle of Berlin. And then abandoned them. They say it's a wound that will never be healed.
Their stories are horrific.
Family members spent days wandering around Berlin before they obtained any certainty that their children, parents or siblings were living or not. They say that nobody answered hotlines, that lists of victims were managed chaotically, that the authorities were overwhelmed and that officials were insensitive.
They say that there was no central point of contact they could turn to. Nor was there anyone who could help victims and surviving family members apply for compensation or hardship assistance.
Even as newspapers published photos and reports on the perpetrator, there were few stories about the victims. They seemed to have been forgotten.
There was no official state event to commemorate the dead like there had been in France. In Italy, the country's president was present when the body of an Italian national killed in the terrorist attack arrived in the country, while in Poland, the country's president also kneeled in front of the coffin of the Polish truck driver who had been killed in the Berlin terrorist strike. In Germany, though, the chancellor didn't even send a letter of condolence. Instead of visits or recognition, surviving family members were quick to receive bills for forensics examinations -- 51 euros (60 dollars) to be paid within 30 days. Otherwise, they would be turned over to debt collectors.
Month after month, surviving family members learned of ever-greater failures and cover-up efforts on the part of the investigating authorities. They also learned that the perpetrator had around a dozen assumed identities, that he had been a drug dealer, that he had committed fraud and that he had been able to prepare a terrorist attack under the officials' noses. And that afterward, law enforcement officials apparently doctored the files to cover up their failures in the run-up to the attack.
Over time, disappointment turned into anger."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/christmas-market-attack-survivors-feel-abandoned-a-1183202.html
"A year has passed since the terrorist attack on the Christmas market at Berlin's Breitscheidplatz and the memorial ceremony has been scheduled to mark the end of a year of mourning. But the weight of that attack and what has come since cannot simply be neatly relegated to the past. Twelve people died on the night of the crime and close to a hundred people were injured and some of the victims are still in clinics today. And few have been able to overcome their loss -- either to their personal health or the loss of a family member. Most wounds are far from being healed.
But when you meet with the victims' relatives, many are quick to report about something very different that happened after the attack. They speak of their disappointment, of a government that failed in their eyes. They decry a state that failed to prevent a terrorist from perpetrating an attack right in the middle of Berlin. And then abandoned them. They say it's a wound that will never be healed.
Their stories are horrific.
Family members spent days wandering around Berlin before they obtained any certainty that their children, parents or siblings were living or not. They say that nobody answered hotlines, that lists of victims were managed chaotically, that the authorities were overwhelmed and that officials were insensitive.
They say that there was no central point of contact they could turn to. Nor was there anyone who could help victims and surviving family members apply for compensation or hardship assistance.
Even as newspapers published photos and reports on the perpetrator, there were few stories about the victims. They seemed to have been forgotten.
There was no official state event to commemorate the dead like there had been in France. In Italy, the country's president was present when the body of an Italian national killed in the terrorist attack arrived in the country, while in Poland, the country's president also kneeled in front of the coffin of the Polish truck driver who had been killed in the Berlin terrorist strike. In Germany, though, the chancellor didn't even send a letter of condolence. Instead of visits or recognition, surviving family members were quick to receive bills for forensics examinations -- 51 euros (60 dollars) to be paid within 30 days. Otherwise, they would be turned over to debt collectors.
Month after month, surviving family members learned of ever-greater failures and cover-up efforts on the part of the investigating authorities. They also learned that the perpetrator had around a dozen assumed identities, that he had been a drug dealer, that he had committed fraud and that he had been able to prepare a terrorist attack under the officials' noses. And that afterward, law enforcement officials apparently doctored the files to cover up their failures in the run-up to the attack.
Over time, disappointment turned into anger."