The family of Hamza Kurtovic, one of the victims of the 2020 Hanau terrorist attack, is commemorating their son and brother and the other victims with an award named after him.
She presents the Hamza Kurtovic Award together with the non-profit company C & E Education and Sport based in Eppertshausen and with the support of the city of Hanau.
People and institutions that work against racism and right-wing extremism are honored in 14 categories.
Jan Schiefenhoevel
Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.
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The prize, a bust of Kurtovic, who was killed at the age of 22, and worth 500 euros, was presented for the first time on Tuesday evening.
The honorees include the former Federal President Christian Wulff (CDU), Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser and the Mayor of Hanau Claus Kaminsky (both SPD) as well as the comedian Enissa Amani.
Among the guests of honor at the award ceremony in the large hall of the Congress Park Hanau were the President of Bosnia-Hercegovina, Zeljko Komsic, and the former President of Croatia, Stjepan Mesic.
The Kurtovic family comes from the former Yugoslavia, Hamza was born in Germany like his father and his siblings.
In a video message, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) said that the victims of the attack on February 19 two years ago were "part of our country, part of us".
Mayor Kaminsky was the first to be honored as a politician.
The laudator, the member of parliament Bijan Kaffenberger (SPD), said that the mayor had found the right words in public after the attack, "not too many, not too few, especially the right ones".
He provided assistance to the victims' families.
The Federal Interior Minister Faeser, who comes from Hesse, was honored with the special prize for having been committed to fighting right-wing extremism from the moment she took office.
The former Head of State Wulff received the award in the Lifetime Achievement category.
As a laudatory speaker, Armin Kurtovic, Hamza's father, thanked him for the sentence: "Islam belongs to Germany."
"Skin colour, origin and gender always play a role"
Iranian-born and Frankfurt-raised comedian Amani, who has received the Grimme Prize and the German Comedy Prize in recent years, said no other prize was as valuable to her as Kurtovic's bust.
By awarding the prize, his family transformed their pain into "light, strength and courage".
If it is claimed that in Germany everyone is treated equally, that is a lie.
Skin color, origin and gender always played a role.
The goal should be to get rid of it.
She herself is too often judged on the fact that she was born in Iran or that she is a woman.
The prize in the sports club category went to Eintracht Frankfurt because their players paid tribute to the victims of the attack with pictures on their T-shirts in the stadium.
The boxer Zeina Nassar was honored as an athlete. She grew up in Berlin as the daughter of Lebanese parents and who has managed to get into the ring with a headscarf.
The karate fighter Larisa Zukorlic from Eppersthausen was honored as a youth athlete.
The Munich Forum for Islam received the prize for religious communities for its project “Ausarten – Change of Perspective through Art”.
The prize for cities went to Rödermark.
The city was honored for its "No Space for Racism" project, which it initiated after the Hanau attack.
In the institution category, the award was given to the Evangelisches Jugendzentrum in Hanau-Kesselstadt, which looks after young people of all backgrounds and teaches them how to box with respect, among other things.
Hanau's Weststadt is part of the Kesselstadt district, where the second of the two crime scenes is located and where the perpetrator lived.
The award for musicians went to the rapper Massiv, the hero and courage award to the influencer Gloria-Sophie Burkandt because she campaigned for respect for Turks and Kurds on the Internet.
The television reporter Susana Santina was honored as a journalist.
The Daft service center in Bad Vilbel, which campaigns against discrimination in nursing homes, was awarded the prize for companies.