Gamze Kubaşık and Semiya Şimşek lost their fathers in the series of murders committed by the right-wing terrorist group NSU. Enver Şimşek was murdered by the NSU in Nuremberg on September 9, 2000, and Mehmet Kubaşık was murdered by the NSU in Dortmund on April 4, 2006. In addition to Enver Şimşek and Mehmet Kubaşık, the NSU murdered Abdurrahim Özüdoğru, Süleyman Taşköprü, Habil Kılıç, Mehmet Turgut, İsmail Yaşar, Theodoros Boulgarides, Halit Yozgat, and Michèle Kiesewetter between 2000 and 2007.Gamze Kubaşık and Semiya Şimşek will talk about their family history, their fathers, the NSU complex, and their fight for justice and remembrance. They will recount how they experienced the shocking events at the time and how the murders tore them away from their previous lives. But they will also talk about how they were able to develop tremendous strength together, which continues to drive them to fight against forgetting and for a future without exclusion. The young adult book “Unser Schmerz ist unsere Kraft” (Our Pain is Our Strength) addresses these issues and the work of remembrance.Until the NSU supposedly revealed itself in November 2011, the victims' families were not taken seriously by law enforcement agencies, government, and politicians, but also by parts of the media. They were left alone and even suspected of being involved in the murders and attacks themselves. The ignorance and false accusations against the victims and their relatives were often characterized by racist attitudes. Their demands for a thorough investigation of the NSU's crimes and the neo-Nazi network behind them were not met in the following years. To this day, the role played by domestic intelligence services and law enforcement agencies in the NSU complex remains unclear.Gamze Kubaşık and Semiya Şimşek met at the silent march in Kassel in May 2006, which was organized by the Yozgat family, whose son Halit had been murdered in his internet café on April 6, 2006, under the slogan “No tenth victim!” Since then, they have been fighting together for clarification, remembrance, and consequences.
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