On February 13, 2025 in Munich, a driver deliberately drives his Mini into a crowd of people at the end of a moving demonstration by the trade union ver.di. 44 people are injured, some of them seriously. A mother and her two-year-old child die from their injuries two days later.
I find out about it via a message: “Were you there?” – No. I didn’t have the demo on my radar. It seemed too ordinary, too predictable. It was only the pictures on social media that showed me what had happened: chaos, screams, rubble. And too many cameras.
I’m not going straight away. Too many people, too much panic, too many people who just want to look. I hate that. I didn’t want to be another photographer looking for a subject between blue lights and blood.
I do go in the afternoon. The road is closed off, silent. Just tracks, barrier tape, chalk markings. The car is still there. Banners, flags, rescue blankets lie between splinters and shoes. In front of the tape: flowers, candles, notes.
I stand there and ask myself whether I have a right to be here at all. Whether I am part of the reappraisal – or part of the problem.
Then I see the baby carriage. Folded up, half in the shadow, half in the light. No one in the picture, no blood, no faces. Just this baby carriage, on wet asphalt, in front of an orange wall. A silent testimony to how fragile everything is. And maybe that’s why it’s the hardest photo I’ve ever taken.
