Urteile (revisited) – Nach dem Prozess (Judgements (revisited) - after the trial)

From 21 October to 7 November 2021 theatre projects will be presented throughout Germany under the label «Kein Schlussstrich!» (“Do not draw the line!”) concerning the National Socialist Underground (NSU) - because even ten years after it unmasked itself, the underlying reasons behind the NSU continue to remain unclear. The play «Judgements», which premiered on 10 April 2014 in the Marstall and which was the first play in a German-speaking country to tell the story from the perspective of the loved ones the murder victims left behind, will therefore be restaged by Christine Umpfenbach with a new cast in the form of a re-enactment and be continued up to the present day.

On 29 August 2001 Habil Kılıç was murdered in his fruit and vegetable shop in Munich-Ramersdorf. The motive for the killing was thought to be «organized crime». On 15 June 2005 Theodoros Boulgarides was shot in his shop in Munich’s Westend. The newspapers greeted the seventh victim with the headlines: «Turkish mafia strikes again.» Instead of being allowed to grieve, the bereaved families were for years the targets of unjustified suspicion from the security services, the media and many of their immediate neighbours. The play deals with what those relatives had to go through in Munich until the killers revealed themselves in November 2011. «Judgements (revisited) – After the Trail» will be expand these themes with observations from the year 2021: What are the thoughts and feelings of the bereaved about the events and the trial now?

The director and playwright Christine Umpfenbach is well known for her documentary theatre projects. Her last play «9/26 – The Oktoberfest Attack» was nominated for the Mülheim Playwriting Prize 2021. In 2013, together with the sociologist Tunay Önder, she spoke to journalists, lawyers and politicians but above all the to the victims’ relatives, friends and co-workers. Their research exposes an exemplary failure whose causes include institutionalised racism in the authorities, the media and everyday life.