German city commemorates victims of synagogue attack, five years on

The eastern German city of Halle on Wednesday marked the fifth anniversary of an armed neo-Nazi attack on a synagogue which left two people killed and several injured.

Church bells began ringing out at 12:03 pm (1003 GMT), the exact time when the first shots were fired at the synagogue on October 9, 2019, when an armed neo-Nazi tried to break into the city's synagogue on the high Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

The attacker failed to break through the synagogue's locked door, despite multiple attempts. He fatally shot a passer-by, and then opened fire on a nearby kebab shop, killing a customer there.

The culprit is serving a life sentence in prison for two counts of murder and multiple counts of attempted murder.

The attack made horrifically clear the violence a person driven by anti-Semitic, racist and right-wing extremist ideas is capable of, said Reiner Haseloff, the state premier of Saxony-Anhalt where Halle is located, at a memorial event in the courtyard of the synagogue.

Haseloff said the shooter's actions revealed patterns and attitudes that have continued to spread in German society in an alarming way over the past five years.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged the nation to never tolerate anti-Semitism as he marked the fifth anniversary of the attack.

Jewish citizens in Germany "must never live in fear," Scholz wrote on the social media platform X.

"For all of us, the following must apply: we will never accept anti-Semitism."

Justice Minister Marco Buschmann also took to X to mark five years since the attack, calling on the nation to stand up against hatred.

"This attack shows: anti-Semites aren't just hostile towards Jews, they are hostile towards humanity. Their hatred is directed at Jews, but it is truly boundless," Buschmann wrote.

Hatred motivated by anti-Semitism is directed against all people looking to live peacefully in a liberal, democratic society, the minister said.

"It is this society, it is we who must confront this hatred: to protect our Jewish fellow citizens and to preserve peace and freedom for all."