New Year’s Eve, Cologne

What happened that night in Cologne? The information was slow to emerge. We didn’t hear much during the week we were on Lesbos. When the news finally erupted, it spooked me.

On New Year’s Day, the police press release described the previous evening’s events as peaceful. Not much out of the ordinary had happened, they said. The usual large crowds celebrated outside the historic cathedral and around the train station—revelry, merriment, alcohol, and fireworks. But what the police and the newspapers related later was an entirely different story. On New Year’s Eve some fifteen hundred men, described by the authorities as having “a North African or Arabic” appearance, most of them sloshed drunk, descended upon the celebratory scene. At some point they broke into gangs and formed rings around young women, refusing to let them go. Some of the men groped victims while others stole handbags, wallets, and cell phones. The women screamed, fought back, tried to escape, but many found it almost impossible to free themselves. Witnesses described the atmosphere around the train station as aggressive, ominously violent, and intimidating. Fireworks were thrown into the crowds to increase the tension. Several women were raped.

Were these attacks organized beforehand? Who were these men? Why did it take so long for the reports to filter out?

Among the early arrests, thirty-one suspects were identified by name, including eighteen asylum seekers. The thirty-one were nine Algerians, eight Moroccans, four Syrians, five Iranians, two Germans, an Iraqi, a Serb, and an American. I tried to find the American’s name or which city he was from but wasn’t able to.

There was one report that was more heartening: a group of Syrian men surrounded an American woman, protected her from assailants by forming a ring around her, and then led her back to her friends.

Of course, in response to the assaults a large number of asylum seekers and darker-skinned refugees were attacked all over Europe. Xenophobia spiked. The repercussions of the Night of the Long Fingers, as it was called, were seen everywhere.

A monosynaptic response, the knee was hit in Cologne, and legs kicked out in Warsaw, in Budapest, in Paris, everywhere.

Antirefugee political parties grew in power.

Syrian refugees went into limbo.