Magdeburg Attack Survivor: 'The First 3 Months Were Hell'

Hi, friends. A few days ago I asked on Instagram whether you'd already been to a Christmas market, or whether Christmas Eve is sneaking up on you this year. One reader wrote back that she's already in the Christmas spirit, but that she can no longer go to the Christmas market in Magdeburg. She was there with her three kids on December 20 last year, when the attack happened.

“I'm doing well again, thank goodness, but the first three months afterward were horror…” We asked her if she'd tell us more about what the attack meant for her and her family. She agreed on the condition that she stay anonymous, which of course we promised right away. Here's her story.

One Year After the Magdeburg Attack

You're in the Christmas spirit, dear, but you can't go back to the Christmas market in Magdeburg after being there last year when the attack happened. What comes up for you when you think back to December 20, 2024?

A deep sadness. The Christmas market was taken from us as a family, and so was the ease of being in a big crowd without a care in the world.

Tell us who was there last year, and what the day was like beforehand. Did you just meet up with friends?

We'd planned the day about three weeks earlier, so we could go to the Christmas market one more time as a family before Christmas. There were 9 of us in total: my husband, my three kids (7, 4, and a baby), grandma and grandpa, an aunt and an uncle.

Did you eat or drink anything there before things changed?

We'd first agreed to meet at 6 p.m. at a smaller Christmas market next door, because it's usually a little cozier there and not quite so crowded. Everybody was running a bit late, and I dashed into the pharmacy in the department store next door. The others had some mulled wine, and the kids had their picture taken with Santa, who was just about to take a little break there but made time for them anyway. They were over the moon.

It was very cold that day, so we didn't want to stand around for long and wanted to keep moving. A few of us needed the bathroom first, though, and it was packed, so it took a while until we were all together again. Then we grabbed a portion of Schmalzkuchen (little fried doughnuts), and the two older kids went to the first carousel with Grandma. After that we were on the well-known lane the car drove through.

We went back to the booths on the other side because the kids wanted to play the can-toss game, but we couldn't find it at first. My husband wanted to get some potato chips and stopped at a stand. The rest of us crossed the lane again and finally got to the can toss. The kids played and got to pick out a prize for their points. They proudly showed it to their grandparents and their aunt. The youngest was in the stroller and getting fussy, and I wanted to get something to drink out of my backpack.

How did you realize something was wrong?

There was a sound I couldn't place, something loud and fast. My first thought was horses. My mom described it afterward as a whirlwind. But none of us thought of a car.

You don't have to share details, but what did you experience there? Are there flashes of memory that keep coming back?

It all happened pretty fast. We were standing at the can-toss booth, looking in the direction the sound was coming from. Suddenly I saw the car heading straight for us. It was driving close along the booths, on the same side where we were. Right next to us stood a metal barrel that had been turned into a standing table. It ended up between us and the car just as the driver decided to change direction again and steer into the middle of the lane. That was our luck, because otherwise we wouldn't have had a chance.
I stood there frozen, watching the car go. He drove straight over the people standing right behind us. I looked into the car, looked right at the man, and his face showed nothing. Then the car was gone and there was panic. People were screaming and calling for help. The people lying on the ground looked terrible.

I turned to my kids, grabbed the two of them, lifted them back up onto the counter of the booth, and held them. My oldest started crying and screaming, and I tried to calm her down. Right then I looked toward my husband, toward the stand where he'd stopped. There were lots of people lying on the ground there. I felt sick, because I was immediately afraid something had happened to him.

I told my family I was going to look for my husband and that they should watch the kids, but I couldn't bring myself to leave the kids. A moment later I turned the other way and saw him standing not far from us, staring at his phone. He was trying to reach me. He had forgotten where we were headed and had run after the car right away.

We looked at each other and both knew we had to get out of there. He picked up our middle child, I took our oldest by one hand and pushed the stroller with the other. We went first to the parallel lane and gathered everyone there. A woman who was hurt had spoken to my mom directly, even held on to her, and my mom was giving first aid. I went back to get her, but she said she couldn't leave. I told her we were going to the car and had to get out of there. She stayed.

We walked to the closest parking garage, where our car was parked. We went to the exit, though, because the entrance is right at the Christmas market. I told my husband there was no way I was going there with the kids and that he should please get the car on his own. It took less than five minutes and he was back with the car. We got in and drove off. On the way home I called our closest relatives and told them not to worry, that we were fine.

Did you get any help on site from crisis counselors or anyone else?

No, but we also wanted to get away from there very quickly. I had the feeling it wasn't over yet, that another car or some other danger might come. That feeling of having to fear for your life was just horrific.

How did the kids react, and how did you get away from there?

The kids asked a lot of questions. My son (4 at the time) wanted to know if the woman would never get the tire mark off her face, and why no ambulance came to help the injured. They wanted to know why a car was driving there when people walk there and there usually aren't any cars. And whether the man didn't know where the right road was.

What was the mood at home afterward? Had you already fully understood what happened?

My in-laws came over right away, since they live nearby, and we spent the evening together. The kids wanted to be close to us and we wanted to be close to them. We held each other tight and didn't let go, because we were so glad nothing had happened to us. The same scene kept playing in front of our eyes, and the thoughts came: what if… I think you can never fully understand how one person can do that much harm to others.

We told the kids they could come to us with any feeling and talk to us. They did that for a few days, mostly out of nowhere. What they kept saying was that they never wanted to go back there. Once they were interested in other things again, we didn't bring it up anymore and just watched. We had a good feeling that Christmas Eve and the holidays were keeping them nicely distracted.

Still, I contacted a psychologist I know and asked her for help. She came by in the new year, talked with the kids, and confirmed our sense that they had processed it well.

It had gotten around, though, that we'd been at the Christmas market, so my oldest was confronted with it on her first day back at school. I was dreading that, but she handled that well, too. We talked about what happened again, and she didn't say it was making her feel bad or that she thought about it often. For my middle child, it wasn't an issue anymore at all.

How did you spend the first days afterward? How did the people around you react?

Lots of friends and family came by without calling first and just wanted to hug us. Two days later was the fourth Sunday of Advent. I invited the family over, with the thought that we're lucky to have each other, when others no longer could say the same. Completely unplanned, one of my closest friends showed up at the door, we looked at each other, burst into tears, and just held on to each other. It 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 anymore, and it was worst in the dark. Even taking out the trash was hard. I couldn't put my baby to bed. Lying in that dark room with the door closed, unable to hear the rest of my family, was awful. I was afraid of noises I couldn't identify right away, and sometimes I panicked. That still happens to me sometimes today.

My lightness, my joy, and my sense of humor were gone, and I was afraid they would never come back. After the attack, a woman in our town offered hypnotherapy. I wrote to her, went once, and it already helped me a lot. A few weeks later I went to my family doctor for a skin check and told her about my situation. I was still on parental leave at the time and was supposed to go back to work in February.

The doctor took my situation seriously right away and found me help. A few weeks later I was in weekly treatment to process what I'd been through. After that I had no more flashbacks, and it became “just” a memory without much emotion attached.

Would you say the event changed you in lasting ways?

I think we won't be going to a Christmas market for the time being, at least not that one. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to let my daughter walk to school on her own anymore, afraid I couldn't protect her if there was danger. Thankfully, those fears have eased, and I didn't pass them on to my kids.

How are you doing with it today? Do the kids still talk about it? Are there different ways of processing it?

Today it's a terrible memory, but when the Christmas markets started up again this year, the kids never brought up wanting to go. I've talked a lot with my husband about it, and with my mom and my sister, who were there. Sometimes we go back over it and are just glad nothing happened to us, and we talk about how incredibly lucky we were.

Some relatives of the victims didn't attend the memorial service, and others booed the politicians there because they feel the follow-up isn't moving fast enough. Do you understand them?

My family was invited, too, but we didn't want to go and couldn't. Other people are responsible for the follow-up, and there are probably reasons why some things move quickly and others don't. It's understandable that this brings frustration, but we can't influence it, so I don't spend much time thinking about it.

Did everything come back up around the anniversary? How do you look at what happened a year later, and at what it did to your family? What does the word trust (in the world) do to you? And how do you look toward the future?

It makes me sad that people keep feeling they have to inflict suffering on others to make their opinion or point of view on certain issues known. I'm afraid that we, or people close to us, will once again be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and won't be lucky. The ease of going to concerts, the movies, sporting events, and other events is just gone. Now I always check how I could get away the best and fastest and get myself to safety.