The police in Germany detained a suspect in a Friday stabbing attack at Berlin’s iconic Holocaust memorial that left one person seriously injured.
The assault, coming two days before a pivotal national election and amid a rise in antisemitic violence across Europe, occurred in the labyrinth of concrete stelae that make up the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, located across the street from the U.S. Embassy and one of the capital’s most sacrosanct sites.
The police said they were verifying the detained person’s identity and that the investigation was ongoing. Police have not yet found the knife thought to have been used in the attack, according to local media reports.
The injured man, a 30-year-old Spaniard, was taken to the hospital, and rescue workers were treating people who witnessed the event for shock, the police said in a statement.
The expansive memorial, described as a “place of remembrance and warning” by Berlin’s tourism website, covers more than four-and-a-half acres and contains 2,711 concrete slabs of varying heights. It is also located next to a large public park.
Photos published by the local news media showed a swarm of emergency vehiclesaround the memorial, illuminated by the glow of blue lights.
While police have not linked the attack to any motive, there has been an increase in antisemitic incidents in Berlin, according to RIAS, a nongovernmental organization that tracks crimes ranging from to online slurs to physical attacks. In the first six months of last year, the organization recorded nearly 1,400 antisemitic incidents, half of which were online, in Berlin, more than occurred in all of 2023.
The attack comes as Germans prepare to vote in parliamentary elections Sunday that may reshape the country’s political landscape. Frustration over Germany’s stagnant economy and dissatisfaction with immigration have pushed Germany’s far-right party, Alternative for Germany, or AfD, high in the polls.
The AfD party, which has been linked to neo-Nazis, has promised to stop migration and deport immigrants.
Over the last year, Germany has endured a string of seemingly unrelated attacks carried out by immigrants from Afghanistan and the Middle East.
Last week, an asylum seeker from Afghanistan crashed a car into a union demonstration in Munich, injuring dozens in the city, where global figures had gathered for a security conference.
And in December, a Saudi Arabian citizen plowed his car through a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six people and injuring hundreds more.
