By Isabel Pancake and Michael Behrendt
For the high school graduates from the Rosa-Luxemburg-Gymnasium in Pankow, it was to be one of the most beautiful evenings of their young lives. But for a 17-year-old, the prom was the road to death.
On Sunday evening around 6.30 p.m., several hundred schoolchildren together with their families and friends entered the “Saal Europa” through gate 2 on Neukölln’s Ziegrastraße. They want to celebrate the end of their school days in the 940 square meter ballroom of the Estrel Congress Center. There is a buffet, the guests drink beer, wine and Aperol Spritz to the brass band music of the school band, later there is boisterous dancing.
“Around midnight my husband and I left. My daughter and her friend – a graduate – stayed,” says mother Irina Wedekind (48) to the BZ
Irina Wedekind (48) was with her daughter at the graduation ball of a friend’s graduate: “I didn’t have a good feeling. The youngsters had been drinking heavily and smoking joints on the dance floor.” Photo: Michael Körner
At around 1:15 a.m., a boy and a girl (both 17) leave their prom. But instead of going home, they decide to climb onto the roof of an outbuilding. A fatal decision that ended fatally for the young woman.
How did the teenagers get on the roof?
But how did the two get on the roof? An office worker in the accident building explains to BZ: “A normal person can’t get up there. I tried it myself. You either have to be able to climb very, very well or you have to be inspired by a lot of alcohol.” Estrel director Ute Jacobs also confirms that there are no stairs to the roof and that it takes a lot of effort to get up there. The windows at the back of the building are widely spaced. It would therefore be impossible to climb the roof without any aids.
According to BZ information, you can at least get to the roof of the “Saal Europa” through the ballroom. The distance to the accident building: a few meters. However, according to the head of security at the Estrel Hotel, security staff are generally present at every event in the hotel.
The 17-year-old boy survived the fall because he was caught by garbage cans. But he couldn’t save his classmate Photo: spreepicture
A hollow passage between the buildings
What they probably didn’t notice anyway: According to the police, the young people are said to have reached the roof with a ladder. Between the ballroom and the office building in which the building services and accounting are located, there is a hollow passage about 1.50 meters wide – this is where the two could have put the ladder.
Shocked parents and students after the accident Photo: spreepicture
The students sit down on the plastic roof of a light shaft. But the roof gives way, and the two fall eight meters down the stairwell. The young man was only slightly injured in his leg and immediately tried to revive his classmate together with a security guard (54) – initially with success.
Students wait in the foyer
After the tragic accident, the other high school graduates are gathered by the police in Foyer 4 of the event site. Her classmate later dies in the hospital. A shock for everyone. “My daughter and her friend are not doing well. You have to process the whole thing first – it’s a tragedy,” said Wedekind.
The Rosa-Luxemburg-Gymnasium set up a mourning room in the school on Tuesday. According to the Senate Department for Education, school psychologists would accompany and support the students in emergencies and crises.
There is a narrow, hollow corridor between the “Saal Europa” (on the right, white) and the yellow office building. This is where the youngsters could have laid the ladder Photo: Michael Körner