Aussie couple witness Nice terrorist attack
Gary and Sheila Esterman watched on in horror from their hotel balcony as a terrorist used his truck to kill 84 people and injure hundreds more on Bastille Day in Nice.
GARY and Sheila Esterman watched on in horror from their hotel balcony as a terrorist used his truck to kill 84 people and injure hundreds more on Bastille Day in Nice.
The Estermans, from Melbourne, were on a holiday and would have left Nice by Bastille Day but Sheila slipped in the hotel, fractured her ankle, requiring surgery, and was consigned to a wheelchair and couldn’t fly.
“We are staying in a hotel in the middle of the boulevard where the attack took place and our balcony on the top floor has a view straight over the boulevard,” Gary told The AJN.
“We were going to go downstairs to watch the fireworks, but I decided that we had a better view from the balcony and that my wife didn’t need to be in the crowd of people, so thankfully we stayed upstairs because otherwise we would have been in the middle of the attack.”
Gary said that the vision of the truck passing, and the carnage it caused, will live with him forever.
“It was pure terror, sheer bedlam and total panic.
“There were bodies lying right on the ground right in front of us.
“I find it very hard to forget what I saw, including the vision of three or four particular victims that stay in my mind.”
In Australia, Jewish communal leaders have expressed their sadness and anger at the terrorist attack.
Extending their heartfelt condolences to the people of France, Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Robert Goot and executive director Peter Wertheim said, “We stand in solidarity with them as they suffer and withstand a succession of brutal, cold-blooded attacks on their freedoms, their glorious culture and their way of life. Foremost, our thoughts and prayers are with the deceased, their families and the survivors.”
The pair added, “We pray that the memories of the dead will always be a blessing to their loved ones. We pray that the bereaved know strength and courage and find comfort at this most difficult of times. We pray that they and the survivors of this attack are able to recover fully in body and in soul.”
In a statement, the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council also extended its deepest sympathies to the nation of France, and to all those who lost families and friends in the “monstrous” attack.
“We pray for a speedy recovery to all those injured and so deeply impacted by this repugnant desecration of all which is human,” the statement read.
“It is difficult to express our outrage, shock and revulsion at the barbaric attack, which at this early stage bears all the hallmarks of terrorism.
“We wish the French authorities every success in their efforts to determine whether the murderer had accomplices and, if so, to apprehend them.
“May we soon see an end to such horrors.”
Decrying this “reprehensible” and “heartbreaking” tragedy, Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission, and Morris Tobias, president of B’nai B’rith Australia-New Zealand, said: “This latest episode of barbarism and depravity is a stark reminder that no-one is safe until the evil of terrorism and radicalism is defeated.
“It is the responsibility of the international community to unite in the battle against global terrorism that threatens our shared values as well as international security and peace.”
JOSHUA LEVI AND EVAN ZLATKIS
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