Photo: Allen G Breed/AP/REX/Shutterstock
A Pittsburgh resident who survived the Holocaust may have narrowly escaped a violent,anti-Semiticdeath for a second time Saturday because he arrived at synagogue four minutes later than usual.
Judah Samet, 80, a jewelry store owner, arrived at theTree of Life synagogueafter the mass shooting thatkilled 11 peopleandinjured six others. Samet — who, as a small boy, was sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he was held with his family for more than 10 months — tells PEOPLE he was late because he got caught up in a conversation with his housekeeper.
“I left four minutes late,” Samet says. “Instead of 9:35, it was 9:39 when I arrived.”
Samet says he was parking in a handicapped spot in the lot just outside the synagogue when a man in a black jacket, white shirt, and black pants approached his car.
“I don’t know who he was,” Samet tells PEOPLE. “He said, ‘You better get out now, because there’s a shooting going on inside the synagogue.’ It took me a minute to process what he was saying. Then, there was this guy standing next to my car; he had a light blue windbreaker and jeans and he was shooting in the direction of the door — of the main door.”
Samet says the sight of the shooter did not make him fear for his own safety: “I was in the military in Israel — I was a paratrooper.”
Instead, his thoughts turned to those inside — people he has known for years.
“Because I knew everybody in there,” he says.
Samet says police officers who had responded to the scene began exchanging gunfire with the killer.
“I was very close to the policeman,” he says. “If he had moved a little, he probably would have hit my car. I had to see who was he shooting. And then, he disappeared. I thought there were two shooters because there was one outside shooting the cop. But he came out and was shooting with the cops. And then he ran back and kept shooting in the synagogue.”
Afterwards, FBI agents interviewed Samet three times about the shooting, he says.
“I identified [the shooter] from his nose up,” Samet explains. “I did say to police, I wasn’t sure if it was a shirt or a windbreaker that was light blue. They said it was a light blue jacket. I couldn’t see; I was about five cars away from him.”
In the coming days, he says he will be attending the funerals of his slain friends.
source: people.com
