Dear ones, when I asked on Instagram a few days ago whether you had already been to the Christmas market or whether Christmas Eve was coming rather suddenly for you this year, a reader also got in touch with us and wrote that she was already in the Christmas spirit, that she had been to the attack in Magdeburg at the Christmas market on 20 December last year, which she attended with her three children, she is no longer able to visit the Christmas market there.
„Fortunately, I’m fine again, but the first three months afterwards were horror…“. We asked her if she would tell us more about what the attack meant for her and her family and she agreed if she could remain anonymous, which of course we immediately gave her permission to do. Here is her story.
One year after the attack in Magdeburg
Love, you’re in the Christmas spirit but you can no longer go to the Christmas market in Magdeburg after you were there last year when the attack happened. How does it make you feel when you think back to the 20th of December today?
I have a deep sense of sadness because the experience of the Christmas market was taken away from us as a family, as well as the ease of being able to enjoy large gatherings of people without a care in the world.
Tell us who all was there last year and what it was like before that, did you just meet up with friends there?
We had arranged this day about three weeks before to go to the Christmas market again as a family before Christmas. There were 9 of us in total. My husband, my three children (7, 4, 0), grandma & grandad, aunt & uncle.
Did you eat or drink anything there before the situation changed?
We had initially arranged to meet at a smaller neighbouring Christmas market at 6pm, as it’s usually a bit cosier there and not quite as crowded. Everyone was a little late and I quickly popped into the pharmacy in the department stores‘ next door. The others had a mulled wine, the children took a picture with Father Christmas, who was just about to take a little break there too, but was still there for them – they were absolutely thrilled.
It was very cold that day, so we didn’t want to stop for long and move on. However, the first ones had to go to the toilet, which was very crowded, so it took a while before we were together again.
Afterwards we got a portion of lard cake and the two older children went to the first roundabout with Grandma. Afterwards, we were in the familiar alley through which the car drove.
We went back to the stalls on the other side, as the children wanted to throw cans, but we couldn’t find them at first. My husband wanted to get some crisps and stopped at a stall, the rest of us crossed the alley again and we finally got to the can throwing. The children played and were then allowed to choose a prize for their points. They proudly presented these to their grandparents and aunt. The youngest was sitting in the car and was just getting restless, I wanted to get something to drink from my rucksack.
How did you realise that something was wrong?
An unidentifiable noise followed, something loud and fast. At first I thought of horses, my mum described it afterwards as a tornado. But none of us thought of a car.
You don’t have to go into details, but what did you experience on site? Are there any memories that keep coming back to you?
It all happened pretty quickly. We were standing by the can throwing booth and looking in the direction of where the noise was coming from. Suddenly I saw the car coming straight towards us. It was driving close to the stalls, on the same side as us. Right next to us was a metal barrel, which had been converted into a high table. It was between us and the car when the driver decided to change direction again and turn into the middle of the lane. That was our luck, because otherwise we wouldn’t have had a chance.
I stood there frozen, looking after the car. It drove straight over the people standing directly behind us. I looked into the car, took a good look at the man and he didn’t make a face. Then the car was gone and there was panic. People were screaming, calling for help, the people lying on the ground looked terrible.
I turned to my children, grabbed them both and lifted them back up onto the counter of the booth and held them in my arms. The older one started to cry and scream and I tried to calm her down. At that moment, I looked in the direction of my husband, to the stand where he had stayed. There were lots of people lying on the floor, I just felt sick as I was immediately afraid that something had happened to him.
I said to my family that I would look after my husband and that they should look after the children, but I couldn’t move away from the children. Shortly afterwards, I turned in the other direction and saw him standing not far from us, staring at his mobile phone. He was trying to reach me. He had forgotten where we were going and immediately ran after the car.
We looked at each other and both knew we had to leave. He took the middle one in his arms, I took the big one in one hand and pushed the pram with the other. We first went to the parallel alley and all gathered there. My mum was approached directly by an injured woman, even held on to her and provided first aid. I went back to her and tried to get her, but she said she couldn’t leave. I told her we were going to the car and had to leave, she stayed.
We then walked to the nearest multi-storey car park, where our car was parked. However, we walked to the exit. The entrance is right next to the Christmas market. I told my husband that I would definitely not go there with the children and that he should please get the car on his own. It didn’t take five minutes before he was there with the car, we got in and drove off. On the way home, I called our next of kin and told them not to worry, that we were fine.
Did you have help on site from emergency counsellors or other people?
No, but we also wanted to get out of there very quickly. I had the feeling that it wasn’t over yet, that another car or some other danger might be coming. That feeling of having to fear for your life was just horrible.
How did the children react and how did you get out of there?
The children asked a lot of questions, my son (4 at the time) wanted to know if the woman would never get the imprint from the tyre out of her face again or why no ambulance came to help the injured. They wanted to know why a car was driving along there, even though people were going for a walk and there were no other cars there. Whether the man didn’t know where the right road was.
What was the mood at home afterwards, did you fully understand what had happened?
My parents-in-law came round straight away as they live not far from us and we spent the evening together. The children wanted our closeness and we wanted theirs, we held each other tightly in our arms and didn’t let go because we were so glad that nothing had happened to us. We kept seeing the same scene over and over again and the thoughts of what would have happened if… I don’t think you can ever fully understand how a person can cause so much suffering to others.
We told the children that they could come to us with any feelings and talk to us. They did that for a few days, mostly out of the blue. What they kept saying was that they never wanted to go there again. When they became interested in other things again, we didn’t discuss it any further and just observed. We had a good feeling that they were well distracted by Christmas Eve and the holidays.
I then contacted a psychologist I knew and asked her for help. She then came round in the new year, spoke to the children and confirmed our feeling that they had coped well.
However, word had got around that we had been to the Christmas market, so the older one was confronted on the first day of school. I was scared of that, but she coped well with it too. We then talked about the experience again and she didn’t say that it made her feel bad or that she often had to think about it. With the middle one, it was no longer an issue at all.
How did you organise the first few days afterwards? How did your environment react?
Many friends and family came round without notice and just wanted to give us a hug. Two days later was the 4th Advent. I invited the family, thinking that we were lucky to have each other, others were no longer able to. Then, completely unplanned, one of my closest friends turned up at the door, we looked at each other, burst into tears and just held each other. That was a very emotional moment.
You say the first three months were hell, what did you go through – and what helped you?
I couldn’t be alone any more, it was worst in the dark. I even found it hard to take the rubbish out. I couldn’t put my baby to bed. Lying in that dark room with the door closed and not hearing the rest of my family was horrible. I was afraid of noises that I couldn’t immediately identify, and sometimes I panicked. That still sometimes happens to me today.
The lightness, my joy and my humour were gone and I was afraid that none of that would ever come back. A woman in our town offered hypnotherapy in the wake of the rampage. I wrote to her, went there once and that helped me a lot. A few weeks later, I went to my GP for a skin screening and talked about my situation. I was still on parental leave at the time and was due to return to work in February.
The doctor immediately took my situation on board and sought help. A few weeks later, I was having weekly treatment to process what I had experienced. After that, I didn’t have any more flashbacks and it was „just“ a memory without many emotions.
Would you say that the event has had a lasting effect on you?
I don’t think we’ll be visiting any more Christmas markets for the time being, at least not this one. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to send my daughter to school on her own to walk the route alone, for fear that I wouldn’t be able to protect her in case of danger. Fortunately, these fears have subsided and I haven’t passed them on to my children.
How do you deal with it today, do the children still talk about it? Are there different ways of processing it?
Today it’s a terrible memory, but when the Christmas markets started again, it was never an issue to want to go there. I talked about it a lot with my husband, as well as with my mum and my sister, who were there. Sometimes we look back and are just glad that nothing happened to us and talk about how incredibly lucky we were.
Some relatives of victims didn’t go to the memorial service, others booed the politicians on site because they didn’t think the process was going fast enough, do you understand them?
My family was also invited, but we didn’t want to and couldn’t go. Others are responsible for working things through and there will be reasons why some things happen quickly and others not so quickly. It’s understandable that this causes frustration, but we can’t influence it, so I don’t spend much time on it.
Did everything come up again on the anniversary? One year on, how do you look back on what happened and what it has done to your family? What does the word trust (in the world) do to you? And how do you view the future?
I’m saddened by the fact that people always have to inflict suffering on others in order to express their opinion/point of view on certain topics. I’m afraid that in the future we or people close to us will once again be in the wrong place at the wrong time and they won’t have any luck. The ease of going to concerts, the cinema, sporting events and other events is simply gone. I’m now always looking at the best and quickest way to get away and keep myself safe.
