“For me, considering the number of shots, they were all dead above.
We lived in this cold room for four hours, four endless hours thinking he was going to come down and kill us all.
»Noémie was 27 years old on January 9, 2015, marriage plans, a vocation: nurse.
A job she can no longer exercise because the sight of blood has become unbearable to her.
At the bar of the special Assize Court on Wednesday, she tells all this - the evidence of death, the impossible reconstruction - in a calm, dignified tone.
Almost resigned.
They will be six, including a 10-month-old baby, to hide in this hut during the hostage-taking of Amedy Coulibaly in the Hyper Cacher at the Porte de Vincennes (20th century).
Four hours spent in the dark, terrified of being discovered.
“We whispered, for fear he would hear us.
And then there was the baby.
We gave him everything we had in our hands to occupy him, keys, papers lying around.
It was our priority, he shouldn't cry, ”explains the young woman.
VIDEO. Hyper Cacher attack: "That day, I had to die"
The stake, she specifies, is then not only to stay alive, but also to preserve "those from above" who lied to Coulibaly, telling him that no hostage had remained under. - floor after the initial panic movement.
Twice the terrorist has already ordered all the hostages to come back.
One of them, Yoav Hattab, 21, has just been shot after having attempted a heroic gesture by seizing one of the jihadist's weapons.
In turn, Brigitte, 50, a refugee at the bottom of the store, accedes to the plea of a "great elegant lady", sent by the terrorist.
With her future husband, a father and her son, she climbed the spiral staircase.
And emerges on the body of the young student, lying in a pool of blood.
“My fiancé said to me:
I beg you, do not look.
But instinctively, I watched.
"
"Do you want him to be shot?"
His legs are shaking at the bar.
“And then up there,” she continues, “there was that sound, that moan… Sorry, sorry for the families.
That sound… You can't imagine it.
”Yohan Cohen, employee of the store and Coulibaly's first target, then dies in excruciating pain.
“I put my head between my knees and my hands over my ears.
And I was ashamed of myself… Because afterwards, Coulibaly, it pissed him off.
He said:
Do you want him to be shot?
That way, we'll be quieter.
"
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Our file on the trial of the January 2015 attacks
The terrorist then begins to eat in front of their eyes, and, discussing "as if we were making friends," repeats to them that they are going to die, and he with them.
To Brigitte, he strikes, sadistically: "Your injury to the foot, you mustn't say it's my fault, eh!"
"" No, I won't say anything.
"" Why are you answering?
Either way, you won't go out!
"
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The former saleswoman, now unable to pick up on her life, says it: part of herself remained in the Hyper Hide that day.
"There is a Brigitte who came out, another who stayed," she said, having a panic attack when talking about the assault, during which she saw herself die.
Yohan Cohen, Philippe Braham, Yoav Hattab and François-Michel Saada (from left to right, from top to bottom).
AFP
Sophie is this "elegant grand lady" who brought back Brigitte, her fiancé, but also a father and her three-year-old son.
In a filmed testimony screened in court, this mother who now lives in the United States and has not been able to travel because of the restrictions linked to Covid-19, also says all her helplessness.
"I thought to myself:
My god, what have you done?
I had brought up a 3 year old child.
With another hostage, we tried to hide the unbearable thing from her.
Coulibaly was asked to release him.
He refused, saying it could be a bargaining chip.
"
Certain words of Coulibaly still resonate with her, and she detaches each of them, which fall, heavy with meaning, in the courtroom: “He said that the Jews loved life too much.
On that, he was right: that's what kept me going.
"
At 5:30 p.m. on January 9, 2015, the police stormed the Hyper Cacher.
LP / J.-BQ
In tears, she expresses all her gratitude to the RAID and the BRI… But, also, the guilt of having survived.
" Why me ?
Why them?
Why why ?
It eats you what why.
So I went from the why to the how, how I was going to get out ”.
For Sophie and her family, this will go through expatriation: “A heartbreak, but a necessity.
"
“But above all,” she said, capturing all the attention of the 14 accused, glued to the screen, I never lost sight of the fact that the trial was going to be held. If I am testifying today, it is so that these four innocent, Jewish victims will be remembered. For the Assize Court to judge and condemn the accomplices of this clearly anti-Semitic attack, perpetrated by French Islamists. So that everyone understands the ramifications of hate networks installed on French soil. To educate, protect us. "Referring in particular to the attacks of November 13, which occurred a few months later, Sophie concludes:" I will always remember what Coulibaly said:
It has only just begun.
When I left, I was pessimistic. Indeed, it was only just beginning. "
