An 88-year-old Holocaust survivor who was set on fire allegedly by Colorado terror suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman asked “what the hell is going on in our country” after the heinous antisemitic attack.
Barbara Steinmetz, the eldest of the 12 victims injured when they were firebombed while advocating for the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas, said she believes the assault “has to do with a human being that wants to burn other people.”
“It’s about what the hell is going on in our country,” a rattled Steinmetz told NBC News in a brief interview two days after the heinous assault outside the Boulder County Courthouse.
“What the hell is going on?” she wondered.
“We’re Americans. We’re better than this,” she added.
Steinmetz said she “wants people to be nice and decent to each other, kind, respectful [and] encompassing.”
“That’s what I want them to know. That they be kind and decent human beings,” she said.
Rabbi Marc Soloway, who leads Congregation Bonai Shalom in Boulder, where Steinmetz is a member, said she suffered minor burns but should fully recover.
The faith leader wondered how someone who escaped the horrors of the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were slaughtered, could comprehend the hate Steinmetz experienced on Pearl Street 80 years after the end of World War II.
“Can you imagine the trauma that that reactivates?” Soloway said. “It’s just horrendous.”
Steinmetz and other members of the mostly-elderly demonstrators were attacked by Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman while they peacefully partaking in a weekly “Run for their Lives” walk to show solidarity with the 58 Israeli hostages still in Hamas’ hands.
The suspected terrorist, who had illegally overstayed his visa, shouted “Free Palestine” and other antisemitic slogans as he blasted the group with a homemade flamethrower and Molotov cocktails, even setting himself on fire.
Soloway said he believes Soliman is “deluded and misguided” for believing “that an act of unspeakable brutality and violence is going to help the … suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
Soliman has been charged with attempted murder and committing a hate crime among other charges.