An Israeli woman attacked on a trip to Berlin: "Hear me speak Hebrew"

Osnat, 54, was attacked this afternoon at the heart of a crowded and bustling area in the city.

She said she stood for a moment on a side street with her husband a few steps ahead of her, and suddenly, a guy in his 20s, she claimed, "gave me a hard punch to the face and they were filled with blood."

According to Osnat, "this was unequivocally an antisemitic attack"

Yoav Itiel

09/03/2022

Wednesday, 09 March 2022, 16:19 Updated: 16:29

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Osnat, an operations manager at a 54-year-old computer company for the defense industry from Tel Aviv, returned last night from Berlin wounded and bruised after she was brutally attacked on the street, allegedly on the basis of anti-Semitism.

The incident took place on Tuesday (Monday), at noon, in the vicinity of the Berlin Zoo, near the train station named after them, and in the heart of a shopping area, touristy and bustling with life, also during this winter period.

"It was the last day of an eight-day trip, our flight was only at night, the weather was relatively good outside and my husband Yaakov and I decided to take advantage of the day for shopping," she told Walla!

Osnat.

"I was looking for a specific store and we decided to cut through a side street. For a moment I stood to look at Google Maps, and my husband continued a few steps forward. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a guy came in front of me or from the side, punched me hard inside without saying a word. I found myself on the floor , I may have fainted from the force of the blow, I became black, my face filled with blood, my temple on the side of my head opened,

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Osnat after the injury (Photo: courtesy of those photographed)

"I was terribly frightened," Osnat recalls, "and my husband was also very frightened because he did not see what happened at all and suddenly saw me lying like this and bleeding. There was some open business out of which two girls came out. They picked me up, gave me wipes to wipe the blood, helped me We asked one to call the police and an ambulance. The ambulance arrived after 20 minutes and wanted to take me to the hospital but they did not agree that my husband would accompany me on the trip and because he does not speak English or German so we gave up and decided not to evacuate. "They called the police and policemen came and took a complaint from me, but we did not hear anything from them."

At night, the couple boarded a flight, returned last night, Osnat went to be examined at Sheba Tel Hashomer Hospital, and according to her, it did turn out that her nose was broken from the punch.

Osnat also talks about the mental injury she has felt since the incident.

"I burst into tears time and time again when I think about what happened. Can't stop the tears. My mother herself was a Berliner who went through the war in a hiding place. My father is from the Netherlands, also a Holocaust survivor who survived the Buchenwald camp. I was in Berlin several times with my mother when I was "Girl, to visit relatives and friends she still had in the city. This time I went to have fun with his husband, this is the first time."

Osnat and her husband on a trip (Photo: courtesy of those photographed)

"If I recreate he watched us and probably heard us speak Hebrew and waited until my husband moved away," Osnat claims, "I felt that. Otherwise he would not have had a reason. I had an expensive iPhone 13 in my hand and he did not snatch it. He just calmly examined the result and left. "It was not a robbery. He did not take out a rudder, did not say a word. I remember him standing looking at me on the floor, a white man with a Corona mask. He looked like he was 30-25 years old.

"It was unequivocally an antisemitic attack," Osnat emphasizes.

"It was aimed at hurting Israelis or Jews. It spoiled our whole trip. I was shocked and I still feel shocked. I feel humiliated. I have not come out of it yet. I want to cry all the time. Crying. It will not break me. I do not know if I will return. To Berlin but abroad I will also go.

I do not expect anything from anyone, just want to tell the story so people will be careful.

You probably have to be careful of those who do not look like that at all,

Osnat after the injury (Photo: courtesy of those photographed)

"Not all bullying is anti-Semitic," he tells Walla!

An Israeli who has lived in Berlin for about thirty years.

"Israelis like to turn such an issue into an antisemitic event but there are enough bad people in the world, even in Berlin. It is no different from any other big city in Europe. I am sure it is relatively safer than cities like Brussels or Amsterdam. You can walk down the street in Berlin in the evening. "Zero. Like in any city, it all depends on the street and the timing and sometimes it's just unfortunate. Sometimes a person gets in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Similar things are said by those who take trips to Berlin: "It is true that once upon a time such events were not known at all, but there are all kinds of hate events and it could be against the background of anti-capitalism from someone who did not like a tourist's expensive clothes. It can always be mentally ill. In Tel Aviv, too, we recently heard about several incidents of random violence against women on the street. "

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