On Friday, January 9, 2015, a Muslim terrorist broke into the HyperCacher kosher supermarket, one of the branches of a Jewish-owned supermarket chain, in the 12th arrondissement of Paris. The terrorist took hostages from among the customers and employees of the supermarket. After a few hours of siege on the supermarket, police officers from the Counter-Terrorism Unit broke into the supermarket and shot the terrorist dead. Four of the hostages were murdered in the attack.
The terrorist, 32-year-old Amedy Coulibaly, born in France from a family of Malian origin, also shot and killed a policewoman the day before the attack. At the time of the break-in, 15 people who were there escaped to the basement and hid there in a cold room, with the help of one of the employees, Lassana Bathily, also a Muslim from Mali.
Following Bathily's heroic actions, the French government granted him French citizenship in an expedited process and in an official ceremony. Bathily was 24 years old at the time and was filling the shelves with merchandise when the terrorist stormed the Hyper Kosher store.
Bathily recalled: "At first I thought it was an accident outside. But when the shots were repeated and then I saw all these customers, about 20 people, coming down on me, I started to understand what was happening."
He put them in the cold storage, holding the door. After a few minutes, he suggested that they try to escape by elevator that transports goods to reach the emergency exit. "They didn't want to, they said it would put their lives in danger. I told them that our lives were already in danger and we had to try something, but they didn't want to leave," Bathily said.
So he unplugged the engine, told them to put their phones in silent mode, and went up with the elevator alone. In retrospect, Bathily said the hostages had made the right decision. Later, colleagues told him that the terrorist heard a noise near the emergency exit and went to check. "He would almost certainly have shot at them," he said.
The police initially thought Bathily was an accomplice to the massacre. "They thought I had explosives, so they fired at me," he said. "They treated me badly at first. They held me handcuffed for an hour and a half."
Once they realized he was working in a supermarket, Bathily used his knowledge of the store to map the store, helping the police prepare the rescue operation. Special forces stormed the supermarket, killed the terrorist and rescued 15 hostages. Four hostages were found dead.
Bathily's actions attracted national attention, and the media made him a hero. "It was very difficult because I gave my first interview at 2 or 3 a.m.," said the 34-year-old protagonist today. "And then the next day my face was everywhere and everyone was talking about me."
"A Muslim who works with Jews, who saved Jews, has become a powerful symbol," he said. "No one expected this. I've always said that Jews are my brothers." He prayed freely at work, prayed daily and observed the Ramadan fast. One of the victims who was murdered, Yohanan Cohen, was his best friend.
"I always say that I saved people, whether Jews, or anything else. We are all human beings, and we need to help each other when we need to," he added.
* Bihadrei Haredim contributed to this article.
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