No lifetime achievement

In memory of the victim: mural on Eugeniu-Botnari-Platz in Berlin-Lichtenberg

In 2015, Eugeniu Botnari came to Germany from Moldova. In Berlin he initially worked as a construction worker. He often slept with friends. He had neither a permanent home nor health insurance. On September 17, 2016, the branch manager of a supermarket in Lichtenberg train station accused him of theft. However, instead of calling the police, he and another employee led the 34-year-old into the market's drinks warehouse and forced him to kneel. With quartz gloves, he beat Botnari in front of the surveillance camera. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage as a result of the beating, but did not dare to go to the hospital until two days later despite severe pain for fear of high treatment costs. He died there on September 20th as a result of traumatic brain injury.

After the crime, the perpetrator sent the surveillance camera recordings, including racist abusive comments, to employees of the supermarket. During the trial it became apparent that Eugeniu Botnari was not the only victim. Apparently there was a real system of vigilante justice behind the abuse in the supermarket. The branch manager had repeatedly beaten up customers in the beverage warehouse who he accused of theft. Sometimes other supermarket employees also used the same methods. The victims were mostly migrants and homeless. In March 2017, the Berlin district court finally sentenced the branch manager to a prison sentence of three years and three months. The mistreatment of Botnari was not politically motivated, according to the verdict.

Eugeniu Botnari was not the only victim. Apparently there was a real system of vigilante justice behind the abuse in the supermarket.

Antifascists in Lichtenberg see things differently. Since the crime in 2016, they have repeatedly remembered Eugeniu Botnari with rallies and demonstrations. In 2020, 200 people signed an open letter calling for a memorial site directly at the train station. Ultimately, the alliance was successful: In 2022, Deutsche Bahn allowed the artistic design of a wall at Lichtenberg train station in memory of Botnari. The following year, the district council decided, with the votes of the SPD, Greens and Left Party, to name the previously unnamed station forecourt after him. AfD, CDU and FDP voted against it.

The vote was accompanied by a discrediting campaign: in numerous newspaper articles, Botnari was defamed solely as a “shoplifter.” It was scandalized that a square was named after an alleged “criminal”. But the sole basis for the accusation of shoplifting is the statement of the branch manager who mistreated Botnari.

Stefan Förster, who was a member of the Berlin House of Representatives for the FDP at the time, said this in an interview with the tabloid B.Z. condescending to the victim: "Residing illegally in Germany and committing crimes is not a life's achievement that needs to be honored." Instead, the FDP Lichtenberg called for the square to be named after CDU politician Walter Lübcke, who was murdered by a right-wing extremist in 2019. After all, according to the FDP, he was a “person with an outstanding life achievement.”

Such reasoning is not uncommon, especially when it comes to socially Darwinist-motivated acts. In the case of Friedrich Maßling, who was killed in Schleswig-Holstein in 1993 and was also homeless, the “Segeberg remains colorful” alliance called for a street named after the National Socialist writer Gustav Frenssen to be renamed. The then SPD mayor Dieter Schönfeld rejected this. Street names honor a person's achievements - things are different, Schönfeld told the Hamburger Abendblatt, if someone "accidentally becomes a victim of a violent act."

The memorial initiative for Eugeniu Botnari sees this type of argument as a renewed repression. Lichtenberg train station is a place from which homeless people are often driven away. The debate about the naming of the square followed seamlessly, says Berit, who is part of the initiative and does not want to reveal her last name: “Even after the death of a homeless person, we encounter this resistance. Even the crime shouldn't be visible here." This makes the naming of Eugeniu Botnari Square all the more important, says Berit.

Due to long discussions about the inscription on the memorial plaque, it was only two years after the decision was made that the square in Lichtenberg was named. While the district office described the act as “xenophobic,” the civil society alliance expressly rejected this term and called for the act to be called “racist.” In 2025, an inscription was finally agreed upon that commemorates “all victims of extreme right-wing and inhumane violence.”

However, Botnari's relatives probably know nothing about any of this. Activists from Lichtenberg have made several attempts to contact his wife or other people close to him. Berit from the memorial initiative reports that they asked the co-plaintiff's lawyer to forward a message to Botnari's wife. Calls to get in touch were also spread in various places and on the Internet. But no one from Botnari's environment ever came forward. “The history of migration and homelessness make Botnari’s networks even more difficult for us to grasp,” says Berit. The memorial initiative is still trying to establish this contact today: “After all, we want to know what the relatives want. And we want to remember Eugeniu Botnari as a human being and not just as a victim of a crime." So far, the memorial initiative's knowledge has been based mainly on media reports and the support of the court proceedings.

Often little is known about those affected and contact with relatives or other companions proves difficult to establish.

This means that the memorial initiative, which is now organizing a demonstration through Lichtenberg on the tenth anniversary of the crime, faces the same problems as many others that commemorate victims of social Darwinist-motivated violence: often little is known about those affected and contact with relatives or other companions proves difficult to establish. Many of those affected - homeless, homeless, unemployed and addicted - have experienced marginalization, repression and rejection throughout their lives. That's why the memorial initiative wants to combine remembering Botnari with a criticism of the prevailing conditions. »Eugeniu Botnari had no health insurance. We have to ask ourselves: Who actually has access to medical care and infrastructure?" Berit asks in an interview with Jungle World. She criticizes the threat of social cuts and the increasing callousness towards poor people.

However, things have by no means become quiet around Lichtenberg train station and the supermarket. During the Covid-19 pandemic, homeless people were denied access to the supermarket “for hygiene reasons”. This is what the reporting portal Berliner Register, which is financed by the Berlin Senate and documents such discriminatory incidents, notes. The documentation on the reporting portal also shows that the memorial plaque and the associated graffiti were repeatedly covered with right-wing extremist stickers and smeared with paint. The memory of Botnari is obviously a thorn in the side of some people, even ten years after the crime. But anyone who enters Lichtenberg train station today has to cross Eugeniu-Botnari-Platz and pass a seventy-meter-long mural that also commemorates the deceased. This is the merit of anti-fascist initiatives in the district. Now the German state just has to recognize him for what he is: another victim of right-wing extremist violence. Such recognition is equivalent to inclusion in statistics. At present, the murder of Eugeniu Botnari is not officially considered politically motivated.