Omar ben Noui sought refuge in Germany two years ago after he fell foul of both sides in the brutal civil war in his native Algeria. Early on Saturday morning, he bled to death in a stranger's doorway after a rightwing mob hunted him through the streets of the eastern German village where he lived.
The death of this quiet, handsome 28-year-old has shocked Germany as few other racist attacks have done, not least because local people watched as Mr ben Noui lay dying but were too terrified to help him.
The village of Guben, a shabby little place on the border between Germany and Poland, offers little public entertainment or organised social life. So Mr ben Noui and his fellow asylum-seekers from a nearby refugee hostel looked forward to the Friday night disco at the "Dance Club", a pre-fab building with a corrugated iron roof.
Unlike many nightclubs in the area, the club runs "mixed" discos, where both Germans and foreigners are welcome. Unfortunately for Mr ben Noui and his friends, Friday night is Nazi night throughout much of eastern Germany, as bands of drunken skinheads pour on to the streets of small towns, roaring fascist slogans and giving the Hitler salute.
When a scuffle broke out in the club between an African asylum-seeker and a local right-wing extremist, few onlookers paid much attention. But the extremist retreated with some slight scratches and bruises and used a mobile phone to summon reinforcements.
When Mr ben Noui left the disco with two other asylum-seekers the club was surrounded by right-wing thugs, many of them in cars. The three foreigners ran in different directions, each pursued by a gang shouting "Turks out!" and "Foreigners out!"
As three or four cars chased the Algerian man through a housing complex, lights began to go on in many flats as more and more people were awakened by the din outside. With his pursuers leaning out of their car windows to shout abuse, Mr ben Noui hurled himself through a glass door.
As he fell through the glass panel, he severed an artery in his knee and, as the skinheads sped away, the former aeronautics student bled to death within 15 minutes.
Horst Graetz, an elderly, disabled man who lived in the house where Mr ben Noui lay bleeding, struggled to the telephone and called the police. Other neighbours watched through parted curtains but dared not venture into the street for fear of attack. By the time an ambulance arrived, Mr ben Noui was already dead.
When he came to Guben for a vigil in memory of Mr ben Noui on Sunday, the prime minister of Brandenburg said the attack went against the trend of declining right-wing violence in the state. The number of racist attacks fell from 152 in 1997 to 93 last year and tough police action appears to be having an effect.
Seven people have been arrested in connection with Mr ben Noui's death and two have already been charged with manslaughter.
Despite the improved police performance, foreigners still feel afraid in eastern Germany and many suspect that right-wing thugs enjoy passive support within the wider community. The catalogue of victims of racism in Brandenburg alone is shocking and many are still suffering long after they have left the headlines.
Noel Martin, a young builder from Birmingham, has been paralysed from the neck down since the day a mob attacked him in the village of Mahlow simply because he is black. A man from Mozambique almost died recently when he was thrown off a moving train and an Italian immigrant was so badly beaten by skinheads that he will have to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Most racist incidents are never reported to the police because their victims are too intimidated to speak out. Many immigrants and refugees now carry weapons to protect themselves, but older foreigners live in a permanent state of fear.
Mr ben Noui, who was known to his fellow refugees as a kind, gentle figure who spent most of his days reading, ended his life with cries of hatred ringing in his ears. But he was the beneficiary of one, last gesture of respect in the minutes after he died.
Mr Graetz, the old man who notified the emergency services, came downstairs and placed a blanket over the dead man and held him until the ambulance arrived.
"He was a very handsome man with lovely teeth. He was very neatly dressed with beautiful shoes," he said.
