LIAS Focus Week: Film screening and discussion: The Barber and the Bomb
17. Jan
This event is open to everyone interested!
Friday, 17 January 2025, 5–7:30 pm
Location: Leuphana University Lüneburg | Lecture Hall 3
Language: German with English subtitles
Film screening and discussion organised by Monika Schoop (Leuphana, LIAS Faculty Fellow)
Panelists: Abdulla Özkan (survivor, witness), Karmen Frankl (Initiative „Keupstraße ist überall“)
Moderator: Monika Schoop
The documentary tells the story of the nail bomb attack in front of a Turkish hairdressing salon in Cologne's Keupstraße on 9 June 2004, focusing on the consequences for the victims and their relatives, who were placed under general suspicion for years. Based on interrogation protocols the film reconstructs police investigations, revealing that the victims were the primary suspects for the police. A xenophobic motive was largely ignored. Only years later, the attack was attributed to a Neo-Nazi terror network, the so-called National Socialist Underground (NSU).
The film The Barber and the Bomb impressively depicts how deeply the bomb attack, and the subsequent suspicions affected life in the Cologne district of Mülheim. The film opens a new discussion on the issue of structural racism in Germany by looking at the perspective of those affected.