News, Movies, Collection
The documentary “The Möllner Letters” by director and author Martina Priessner will celebrate its world premiere at the Berlinale on February 14, 2025: the film will be shown in the Panorama section of the 75th Berlin International Film Festival. The film was also shot here at DOMiD, in our archive, where the Mölln letters are permanently stored.
In November 1992, three people were killed by German neo-Nazis in the racist arson attacks in Mölln: ten-year-old Yeliz Arslan, 13-year-old Ayşe Yılmaz and 51-year-old Bahide Arslan in an attempt to save the two girls. Before that, she managed to wrap her seven-year-old grandson İbrahim Arslan in wet cloths and save him from death. Numerous people were injured.
In the aftermath, hundreds of people wrote letters to the bereaved. Many children drew pictures and even Holocaust survivors wrote to the family to express their solidarity. But the letters went unnoticed for decades. By chance, they were rediscovered a few years ago in the archives of the town of Mölln. After the letters came into the possession of the bereaved, the family handed them over to DOMiD as a migration archive for safekeeping.
The award-winning director's documentary opens up a new perspective on remembering - one that focuses on the stories of the survivors. The film follows İbrahim Arslan and his siblings and paints a complex picture of the enduring trauma that shapes their lives. Through his fight against racism and his commitment to the victims, İbrahim Arslan has found a way to channel his pain. His brother Namık, on the other hand, is still struggling with the scars of the past.
“The Moelln Letters” not only gives the survivors and victims a better voice, but also reveals the hidden solidarity that they were unaware of for decades. Today, İbrahim Arslan says: “If we had known about the sympathy and solidarity in society, it would have helped us back then and given us a little comfort.”
The DOMiD team added the first letters to the collection at the beginning of 2021 and digitized them completely. A further bundle discovered later was inventoried in 2023. In total, there are 908 documents. Researchers can search the DOMiD archive by appointment.
A selection of the Moelln letters will be on display in the permanent exhibition at the Selma Museum. DOMiD will open the nationwide migration museum in Cologne in 2029.
A film by Martina Priessner
96 min / Germany 2025 / Documentary film
World premiere: 14.02.2025, 12:30h, location: Stage Bluemax Theater am Potsdamer Platz as part of the Berlin International Film Festival 2025 in the Panorama section.
NRW film festival premiere: 01.04.2025, location: Dortmund, International Women's Film Festival Dortmund+Cologne.
The theatrical release distributed by Real Fiction in Germany is planned for fall 2025.
News, Movies, Collection
14 February 2025 – 22 February 2025
The documentary “The Mölln Letters” celebrates its world premiere at the 75th Berlinale. The bereaved of the 1992 Mölln attack only found out about the many hundreds of letters of solidarity decades later. They are kept at DOMiD.
News, Collection
27 August 2024
A moving object that embodies the history of the racist arson attacks in Mölln in 1992 is being added to the DOMiD collection today. The family presented the memento to DOMiD in order to keep the memory alive.
History, Event, Movies, panel-discussion, Digital offer, Audio/Podcast
50 years ago, more than 300 so-called wildcat strikes took place in the Federal Republic of Germany. The strikes of 1973 represented a caesura in German migration history. We let voices from then and now speak and provide historical material.