Berlin Pride attacks cause grief, anxiety and solidarity with the 2SLGBTQ+ community
Members of Berlin’s 2SLGBTQ+ community and others expressed grief, anger and solidarity Sunday after a car plowed into crowds at the city’s annual Christopher Street Day Pride celebration, killing one person and injuring 29 others.
Organizers of the show canceled several related events after Saturday night’s attack, including a breakfast market in the popular food hall and a clean-up after the show.
Instead, thousands of people gathered for a public vigil at 2 pm local time in Pariser Platz, the square surrounding the Brandenburg Gate, just a few hundred meters from where the attack took place.
The event reached a maximum capacity about 30 minutes after the start, despite the rain or closed, when the police limited the presence of people due to security measures, according to the organizers.
Attendees held a moment of silence for the victims and waved Pride flags, with one holding a large sign that read “From grief, to anger to protest!”
For Ali Darwich, the deadly attack on the Berlin Pride Festival was an attack on the city of Berlin and everything it stands for: its diversity, its tolerance and its belief in freedom.
On a personal level, it was also an attack on everything the Berliner put together.
“I was born a Muslim, I live as a gay man, I work as a police officer,” said Darwich, while fighting back tears, “this terrorist attack affects so many aspects of who I am.”
On Sunday, Darwich, 34, watched sadly as many members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community came to Tiergarten park, where the attack took place. They put the flowers down and hugged each other and watched in disbelief as the wrecked van was still stuck behind a lot of police.
Like Darwich, many of them were celebrating life and love just hours earlier, protesting for equality and warning about the rise of hate crimes in their community.
It was only after he woke up on Sunday morning that he truly understood the significance of the attack.
“I asked myself why, as a police officer, I did not run to the scene of an accident to help my colleagues. I asked myself as a gay man that we will have to live in great fear now even though we are facing violence and hatred. I asked myself as a Muslim if my community will face racism now.”
Darwich, who was born in Berlin and has Lebanese and Palestinian roots, expressed concern that the attack would further divide German society.
“I’m actually feeling desperate this morning,” said Darwich, who also works as a promoter and posts a lot of videos on social media that often try to strike a positive note. “We can’t stop the hatred that other people feel, and it just keeps getting worse.”
‘I’m just surprised’
Others who attended the impromptu vigil in the Tiergarten also expressed anger and shock, but also resilience.
“We are just shocked by what happened yesterday,” said Andre Lehmann, CEO of the largest national 2SLGBTQ+ organization, LSVD+. “This attack touches the heart of the renegade community.”
Lehmann said there has been a “10-fold increase in anti-queer hate crimes in Germany within a few years.” He added that “for years, to be honest, nothing has happened and, to be honest, there has been no public outcry for years.”
Ashley Jump, a 26-year-old UK citizen, was in Berlin for a pride event on Saturday but left the celebrations before the attack. Jump, still in shock, returned on Sunday to leave flowers at a memorial near the scene.
“They will never erase us, we will never leave,” they said, their voices trembling with pain. “As humanity exists, we exist. And as humanity exists, we will exist. We will not be removed.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig attended a memorial service at the medieval church of St.
Alfonso Pantisano, the Berlin state’s LGBTQ media commissioner, said he was at the Brandenburg Gate when everything changed in an instant.
“To you, my dear community: I know that many of you are afraid right now. I will not sugarcoat it – I am too. But you are not alone in this fear, in your grief and in your anger,” Pantisano wrote on Instagram.
German rapper Ikkimel, who was part of a stage show on the first day of the Christopher Street Day Pride celebrations, wrote on Instagram, “I hope more people realize how important it is that we stay together strongly, now more than ever.”
Berlin has a long history as a 2SLGBTQ+ hub
Up to a million people take part in Berlin’s CSD fair each year, according to city authorities.
The march through the green heart of Berlin, the Tiergarten park, brings together groups and supporters campaigning for the rights and inclusion of gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people.
The event – first held in 1979 – takes its name from Christopher Street in New York’s Greenwich Village, commemorating the Stonewall uprising in 1969 against police attacks and torture.
Berlin has long occupied a central place in the history of gay rights and culture, since the end of the 19th century, when sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld founded what is considered the world’s first gay rights movement in 1897.
The city became an international center for gay and lesbian life during the Weimar Liberation, but the thriving cultural scene that emerged was largely destroyed under Nazi rule.
Despite continued discrimination after the Second World War and during the division of Germany, gay communities gradually re-emerged in Berlin through barricades, social movements and political activism.
