- Title: Jewish eyewitness talking about lack of police presence at synagogue
- Date: 10th October 2019
- Summary: HALLE, GERMANY (OCTOBER 10, 2019) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF POLICE OUTSIDE OF SYNAGOGUE CANDLES OUTSIDE OF SYNAGOGUE AND PAN TO DOOR SIGN ON DOOR VARIOUS OF BULLET HOLES ON DOOR JEWISH EYEWITNESS EZRA WAXMAN, TALKING TO PRESS (SOUNDBITE) (English) JEWISH EYEWITNESS EZRA WAXMAN, SAYING: "Yeah. I think the energy was was fairly calm given the situation. Today I feel a lot more kind of sombre, just because yeah people were killed. But yesterday was more about just kind of being really thankful for a kind of a miracle that he couldn't get through the door and that like a much bigger tragedy was.... yeah, didn't happen." MEDIA (SOUNDBITE) (English) JEWISH EYEWITNESS EZRA WAXMAN, SAYING: "That was one thing. There was less security here than for example in Berlin. And that was a little surprising at the beginning. But again by a miracle, the storages didn't open. But definitely an understanding that security, police presence at synagogues I think is a pretty important thing." VARIOUS OF SYNAGOGUE HALLE, GERMANY (OCTOBER 9, 2019) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF CANDLE LIGHT VIGIL IN MARKET SQUARE OF HALLE
- Embargoed: 24th October 2019 07:24
- Keywords:
- Location: HALLE, GERMANY
- City: HALLE, GERMANY
- Country: Germany
- Reuters ID: LVA001B0IJUPZ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:A gunman who denounced Jews opened fire outside a German synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, and killed two people as he livestreamed his attack.
Several German media outlets said the perpetrator acted alone on Wednesday in the eastern German city of Halle. He fatally shot a woman outside the synagogue and a man inside a nearby kebab shop.
Two other people were seriously injured, but regional broadcaster MDR said their condition was not critical.
An eyewitness from inside the synagogue said that it was "a miracle" that he could not get through the door and a bigger tragedy was averted.
Police said they had detained one person, reported by German magazines Spiegel and Focus Online to be a 27-year-old German named Stephan B. His full name cannot be published under German privacy laws.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported, without citing its source, that when he was detained the suspect had a wound to the neck and that security authorities suspected he had attempted suicide.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's government voiced outrage over the attack on Yom Kippur and urged tougher action against anti-Semitic violence.
Merkel visited a Berlin synagogue as around 200 people, some holding Israeli flags and candles, held a vigil outside. Merkel's spokesman tweeted: "We must oppose any form of anti-Semitism."
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