The Jewish community has been worried since the anti-Semitic attack on Wednesday, October 9, in Halle, eastern Germany. It demands better protection and mobilization against the far right.

"Now, we need action and more than words" to protect places of worship, denounced the President of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, in a statement after the attack that killed two people. Above all, "we must build a united front against neo-Nazis and other extremist groups, and the fact that they are gaining influence in Germany 75 years after the Holocaust is very telling," he added.

On Wednesday, the day of Yom Kippur, the great Jewish religious holiday, a 27-year-old German, portrayed as Stephan Balliet by the media, burst heavily armed outside the gates of the synagogue of Halle, 170 km southwest of Berlin .

The arrested assailant

Wearing a military jacket, wearing a helmet surmounted by a camera filming the assault, he intended to commit carnage in the building where were gathered about 80 faithful. He was prevented from doing so only by double-locked doors for safety, which resisted his shotgun fire.

"God wanted us today to live," one of the faithful, Rebecca Blady, testified on social media. "We are safe and sound, trying to understand what happened."

The attacker then killed a female passer-by and then a customer of a nearby Turkish restaurant, before confronting the police, who will eventually injure and arrest her during a chase.

Christchurch

The authorities must give details of his profile and possible background at a press conference during the day. The man with the shaved head acted alone, apparently improvised enough.

And most importantly, inspired by the staging of the Australian right-wing extremist responsible in March for the attack on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, which had killed 51 people. His film was also broadcast on the Internet.

The Twitch video game streaming platform said the live had lasted 35 minutes, with only five spectators. Then another 2,200 for the replay, before the video deletion.

Unanimous condemnation

He also published before the attack an "manifesto" anti-Semitic, in which he expressed his goal to "kill as many anti-Whites as possible, preferably Jews," according to the Terrorism observatory Site and the daily Die Welt.

The paper also states that the text specifically mentions the plan to attack the Halle synagogue on Yom Kippur and survive.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and all German leaders condemned this act.

But this time, the Jewish community does not want to stop there, in a context of continuous rise of anti-Semitic acts in the country, coming from the extreme right-wing circles but also for some of the Muslims among the migrants who have arrived in the country since 2015 .

"I do not understand at all that the synagogue of Halle had no police protection during the most important Jewish day of celebration," criticized the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster.

Last year, antisemitic acts of all kinds in Germany increased by almost 20% compared to 2017, to 1,799, according to police statistics.

The neo-Nazi movement is at the origin of a good part of them, against the backdrop of the continued rise of the far-right political in Germany, which wants to end the culture of national repentance for the horrors of the Third Reich .

With AFP