The Longest Day, a film by Carey Parker.
On 19 February 2020, Çetin Gültekin lost his only brother in the most brutal way possible. Gökhan ‘Gogo’ Gültekin was one of nine people who were killed by a racist shooter in the German town of Hanau. All victims were born and lived and worked in Germany, but the white German perpetrator considered them ‘foreign’.
It was not only this brutal attack itself that left Çetin and his family traumatised, but the additional experience of police failings in the case and the lack of respect shown to them and other victims by the authorities, which they describe as “a second attack” — which Çetin Gültekin and his friend Mutlu Koçak used as the title of a piece in Transit Journal on preparing Gökhan’s body for his funeral.
Together with Mutlu, Çetin wrote a book about his brother’s life and death: Geboren, aufgewachsen, und ermordet in Deutschland: Das zu kurze Leben meines Bruders Gökhan Gültekin und der Anschlag von Hanau [Born, raised, and murdered in Germany: The All Too Short Life of My Brother Gökhan Gültekin and the Hanau Shootings], which was published in 2024 and has become an international bestseller. Mutlu and Çetin want the world to remember Gökhan. But their book also shows how dangerous and pervasive racism is in Germany today, honouring other victims of racist violence since the Hanau attack and challenging racism and discrimination in German society and beyond.
In this short film, which pieces together an interview carried out in the home of PI Kathatina Karcher and footage taken in Hanau and at memorials for the nine victims, Çetin and Mutlu talk about their book, their work as anti-racist campaigners, and how they are using empathy and memory in their struggle for a better world.
The Longest Day formed part of our exhibition Remembering is Painful, Forgetting is Unbearable at Birmingham’s RBSA Gallery, where it was shown in full in the gallery space alongside excerpts from Geboren, aufgewachsen, und ermordet in Deutschland: Das zu kurze Leben meines Bruders Gökhan Gültekin und der Anschlag von Hanau and an archive of personal pictures provided by Çetin and Mutlu which included pictures of Gökhan throughout his life, pictures of memorials to the nine victims of the shooting, and events and rallies as part of the #SayTheirNames campaign.
The Longest Day, by Carey Parker. Archive photos by Çetin Gültekin and Mutlu Koçak. Photo taken by Katharina Karcher.
The Longest Day, by Carey Parker. Archive photos by Çetin Gültekin and Mutlu Koçak. Also in this image are works by Lisa Ghiggini (left) and Harry Man and Endre Ruset (right). Photo taken by Azadeh Sarjoughian.