Dafna Gerstner says she no longer feels safe in Munich after Be’eri attack

Three years after surviving the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, Dafna Gerstner says she no longer feels safe speaking Hebrew in public in Munich. The BR reports that her brother and many friends were killed or taken hostage in the attack on October 7, 2023.

Gerstner grew up in Be’eri, a community in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip. She remembers it as a place where children could play freely and residents looked out for one another. She was visiting her family with her German husband, Florian, and staying at her brother Eitan’s home when the attack began.

Gerstner says she woke at about 6:30 a.m. to an unfamiliar sound. By around 7 a.m., she heard continuous explosions and gunfire. The couple spent 19 hours in a shelter before the army evacuated them. They learned through WhatsApp about attacks on other kibbutzim and the killings at the Nova music festival.

Her brother Eitan was among those killed. More than 100 other people from the community also died, while 32 people were taken hostage from Be’eri, according to the report. Homes were burned or destroyed. The Israeli army said around 340 attackers entered the kibbutz that day.

Gerstner stayed in Israel for six months to support her family before returning to live and work in Munich. She says she now feels uncomfortable speaking Hebrew openly on the street. Michael Weinzierl, the Bavarian police commissioner for hate crime, particularly antisemitism, says antisemitic offences in Bavaria have risen sharply since October 7, 2023. Synagogues and Jewish schools are guarded by police almost around the clock.

Gerstner has published a book, “They came to kill us,” about life in the kibbutz before the attack, the community’s solidarity afterwards and the changes in her own life.