“Ten years ago I walked in puddles of blood” | EUROtoday

LYears go and reminiscence erodes. Memories turn into foggy and pictures of the previous lose their colours and smells. But for Noémie, ten years after the Hyper Cacher hostage-taking by Amedy Coulibaly, throughout which 4 individuals misplaced their lives, the stigma stays intact. She nonetheless hears the sounds. But the worst will undoubtedly stay the blood. The “pools of blood”.

A number of days earlier than the commemorations of the assault which befell ten years in the past, she welcomed us into her house within the Paris suburbs. Noémie is among the uncommon survivors of this anti-Semitic assault who’s keen to inform her story. Openly, she needed to offer her testimony “so that we don’t forget”.

Margarine and the terrorist

Noémie was 26 years outdated on the time of the occasions. Like greater than 65 million French individuals, on January 7 and eight, 2015, she found with horror the assault dedicated by the Kouachi brothers within the premises of Charlie Hebdo and the homicide of policewoman Clarissa Jean-Philippe in Montrouge. “I was horrified,” remembers Noémie, an expert nurse. In 2015, she then labored at Saint-Antoine hospital (Paris) within the digestive intensive care unit.

ALSO READ Montrouge assault: “Don’t forget Clarissa the policewoman” On January 9, 2015, Noémie went within the morning to her grandparents in Saint-Mandé, a city bordering Paris. “At the end of the morning, as I was leaving their house, my mother asked me to go through the Hyper Cacher to get her some margarine. She wanted to make an apple pie. » It is then almost 1 p.m. At the Hyper Cacher at Porte de Vincennes, in the 20^e district of Paris, dozens of customers, mostly Jews, are making their last purchase in anticipation of the Shabbat meal. “I was at the back of the store when I suddenly heard an explosion. It looked like a big car accident. » At this precise moment, she does not yet know it, but the terrorist Amedy Coulibaly has just burst into the store and killed the handler Yohan Cohen, aged 20.

“Every minute, every second became a little more uncertain…”

Very shortly, a wave of panic seized the purchasers and workers of the shop. “I heard several people shouting: ‘Quick, he’s armed!’ At that moment, I understood what was happening…” recalls Noémie. “I was gradually going up the shelves to try to leave the store when I saw an imposing figure blocking the entrance to the store. » Without thinking, she then follows customers and employees who go down to the basement of the store, where the cold rooms are located. “Instinctively, we barricade ourselves in one of the fridges. » Then began four long and interminable hours of waiting. In this 7 square meter cold room, she remains hidden with five other people, including a 10-month-old baby.

“We didn’t make a sound. It was dark, so we lit up with the light from our phones. And it was cold. There were puddles on the ground. We had locked the door, but we were afraid that it could be opened from the outside. We tried as best we could to block it. Then, during the four hours, we tried to entertain the little baby who was with us. He was incredibly wise, he never cried, he never made any noise…” recalls Noémie. Meanwhile, the hostages talk. “We didn’t all see and hear the same thing. We didn’t know how many attackers there were. » A bond is also created between them. “We told each other jokes to try to lighten the atmosphere,” she adds. For several years after the attack, the hostages kept in touch, before time separated them.

ALSO READ Ten years after “Charlie Hebdo”, should we still fear the terrorist threat? At the same time, she and the other hostages keep up to date with the progress of events live, via 24-hour news channels and their loved ones. “On BFMTV, they said that there were hostages hidden downstairs. We started to get stressed, we who thought we had succeeded in hiding our presence. Every minute, every second became a little more uncertain…” Meanwhile, the Raid and the BIS prepare their assault on the store.

“I was convinced that everyone who remained upstairs was dead”

“Around 5 p.m., on the phone, my fiancé told me that the attack was going to take place. From below, we heard a lot of explosions,” says Noémie. It was 5:10 p.m. when the BRI and Raid columns entered the store and killed the terrorist. If the assault lasts only a few minutes, “it was very long for us”. The intervention forces thus freed Noémie and the 25 other hostages.

“The police asked us to cover our eyes and follow them. By then I was convinced that everyone who remained upstairs was dead. I looked down and realized I was walking through puddles of blood. »

ALSO READ “Charlie Hebdo”, ten years later: the forgotten attack in CopenhagenThe hours following the hostage taking were long and difficult. “I was in shock, I had difficulty understanding that I had finally gotten out of the cold room. And I only wanted one thing: to go home,” explains Noémie, who had to go through depositions and psychological interviews in the wake of the attack. And once she returns home, it’s finally a reunion with her loved ones: “It’s the first time I’ve seen them since the attack. They were all reassured to see me. But there was a long moment of silence, no one really knew what to say. My mother had prepared the table for Shabbat, so we sat down and didn’t talk about it. »

“So the first day, out of fear, I went and hid under the table”

In the years that followed, Noémie had to relearn how to live despite the trauma. Fear of public transport. The fear of returning to a restaurant or a kosher store. The fear of going to the cinema, to the theater. But one trauma keeps coming back: the blood. The pools of blood. Blood under the shoes. Blood everywhere. However, blood is part of his daily life. Worse, she is forced to rub shoulders with him in his profession.

As a result, for two long years, she was unable to return to work, before finally finding a new position in pediatric consultation at the Robert-Debré hospital in Paris. “We sometimes had to take blood samples from the children. Normally there isn’t too much blood but it was still complicated, especially the first few times. »

ALSO READ January 11, 2015, the day the whole world marched for “Charlie” With time and good psychological support, she was able to slowly desensitize herself to the sight of hemoglobin. But when it’s not the blood, it’s the noises. “At work, we had a mailbox where patients put their papers when they arrived. And, every time it closed, it made a loud clicking noise. So, the first day I heard that snap, out of fear, I ran and hid under the table. »

“Now we have to relearn everything, like the day after the attack”

For almost nine years, Noémie made progress over her traumas. The fear that it will all start again. The fear of death. Then there were the Hamas massacres in Israel on October 7, 2023 and the resurgence of anti-Semitism in France. “I have always been afraid since 2015, but after the October 7 massacres, I am more afraid. It’s very difficult on a daily basis. My son had just started Jewish school and with the tons of anti-Semitic acts that followed, I was scared. And, while I had managed to return to restaurants or kosher stores, I stopped again. Now, we have to relearn everything, like the day after the attack. »

ALSO READ “Charlie Hebdo”, Montrouge, Hyper Cacher: what have we done with these ten years?
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Today working on the Adolphe de Rothschild Foundation hospital within the restoration room, she is prospering and slowly returning to a semblance of regular life. But she is aware of, this era of reminiscence will not be simple. “For the past few days, I’ve started having nightmares again… I feel like this week is going to be trying. I can’t wait to move on. »

She concludes with a thought for other captives: “I was hostage to Amedy Coulibaly for four hours and I still suffer from it today. So today I am thinking of the people, the women, the children held hostage by Hamas for more than a year and a half. Four hours was already unthinkable, so that much time…”