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It may be an anti-Semitic attack. Apparently the attacker had a piece of paper with a swastika in his pocket.
A man wearing a kippah, the traditional Jewish hat, at a 2018 anti-Semitism rally in Erfurt.
(dpa) A 29-year-old man dressed in a camouflage suit attacked a Jewish student in front of the Hamburg synagogue with a folding shovel and seriously injured him. The German with Kazakh roots made an “extremely confusing impression,” a police spokeswoman said late at night. It is very difficult to hear it. It is unclear where the man got the military clothing from. Initially, the spokeswoman was unable to provide further information on the crime’s history. The investigation continued.
According to the police, the community wanted to celebrate the Sukkot Tabernacle on Sunday. The 26-year-old victim was also heading there. After the bloody act, the police cordoned off the crime scene. Some people got together. One woman held up a sign: “We are ashamed of this act and we want to show our Jewish friends and neighbors that we are with them,” it read.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas strongly condemned the attack. “This is not an isolated case, it is disgusting anti-Semitism and we must all oppose it,” Maas wrote Sunday night on Twitter. “My thoughts are with the student, I wish them a good recovery.” According to information from the DPA, the perpetrator is said to have had a piece of paper with a swastika in his pocket. According to the police, he lives in Berlin. Initially, it was not clear what relationship it has with Hamburg.
State security on
The 26-year-old suffered head injuries but is not seriously injured. According to the information, he managed to get to safety and was attended by passers-by until rescuers arrived. Officials who were on site to protect the synagogue and observed the incident arrested the attacker. Now the background would be determined. State security had also been turned on.
If an anti-Semitic background were confirmed, dark memories of the attack on the Jewish church in Halle almost a year ago would be awakened. “The question is, what have we not learned since Halle?” Said regional Rabbi Shlomo Bistritzky of the Hamburg Jewish Community, who said he arrived a few minutes after the crime. “Everyone was very, very shocked.”
On October 9, 2019, the heavily armed right-wing extremist Stephan Balliet attempted to storm the synagogue in Halle and cause a massacre of 52 visitors. At that time they celebrated the most important Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur. When he failed, he shot a passerby and a twenty-year-old guest in a kebab shop. During his escape, the German wounded several people, some of them seriously. The proceedings against him are ongoing in Naumburg Higher Regional Court.
Insufficient protection for Jewish institutions
The Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, Christoph Heubner, stated on the fact in Hamburg that for the Holocaust survivors it was a deeply depressing thought that the Jewish people and Jewish institutions in Germany obviously still cannot be adequately protected.
The mayor of Hamburg, Peter Tschentscher (SPD), reacted with dismay. “I wish the victim great strength and a speedy recovery. Hamburg stands firmly on the side of our Jewish fellow citizens, ”he said in the evening. Second Mayor Katharina Fegebank (Greens) tweeted: “I am deeply ashamed that a Hamburg Jewish faith was attacked in front of the Hohe Weide Synagogue today.”
