A Ukrainian girl on trial for planning to kill students and teachers at a German high school was possibly targeted by bullies and likely ostracized by her schoolmates, Ukraine's largest daily newspaper, Segodnya, reported on Thursday, according to dpa. Tanja Otto, 17, faces attempted murder and other charges for bringing home-made bombs, a knife and a gas pistol on May 11 into the Albert Einstein Gymnasium in St. Augustin, a town near Bonn. A female schoolmate suprised Otto in a school bathroom, upon which Otto attacked with the knife, severing the girl's thumb, according to media reports. The victim was able to escape and inform authorities, who later arrested Otto without incident. As a child brought up in the former Soviet Union and studying in a publicly-funded German high school, Otto fit the profile of a student likely to be ostracized and bullied, according to Segodnya's report. The article cited a social worker and two school teachers as sources. All reportedly were born in the former Soviet Union, spoke Russian at home and now live in Germany. Two were ethnic Germans, and one was described as ethnically Jewish. "I know from personal experience what kind of social pressure Russian-language children come up against in German schools," social worker Anna was quoted by the newspaper as saying. "The pressure comes from the students, and teachers...if a child knows more than the teacher (i.e., acts too intelligently)...then those students are targeted," she alleged. Aleksy, a Heidelburg biology teacher, told Segodnya that German high school students are commonly divided into a two-tier society in which lower-tier individuals, called MOF (Menschen ohne Freunde, or People without Friends) are ostracized and ridiculed by more popular students, who have friends. Elena, a teacher in Cologne, said the ostracizing was aimed at children who did not fit in and that not only Russian-speakers but German-speakers different from the norm could be targeted. The newspaper report gave no evidence of specific instances of Otto's having been targeted by schoolmates. Otto, in a possible suicide note confiscated by police, and later published in German media, wrote she indended "to make (her schoolmates) cry at least once" before she killed herself. Otto had intended to lock the school doors and set the building on fire using Molotov cocktails, police have said.
