Berkeley Remembers Holocaust Victims a Day After Deadly Synagogue Shooting

Berkeley residents gathered for the city's 17th annual Holocaust remembrance event on Saturday, just one day after a 19-year-old opened fire at at a synagogue near San Diego, killing one person and injuring three others.

The shooting at the Chabad of Poway is being investigated as a hate crime, and it came six months to the day after the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, which left 11 people dead.

It is the latest in a string of recent deadly attacks targeted at places of worship around the world, including the shootings at two mosques in New Zealand that left 50 people dead and at least 20 seriously injured, and the coordinated blasts in Sri Lanka that struck churches and hotels and killed more than 200 people.

After hearing about Saturday's shooting, Berkeley resident and ongoing convert to Judaism Marshika Szabo said she felt drawn to be with the Jewish community.

"One of the questions that comes up when you meet with a rabbi for the first time is 'Do you understand the danger? That you're going to be part of a community that's persecuted?'" she said.

Holocaust survivor Ralph Samuel knows a lot about that danger. His parents saved his life at age seven by sending him to England. His mother managed to join him by working as a servant and caretaker wherever he was housed. His father, however, was murdered in a concentration camp.

"I speak out about the Holocaust to remember the 6 million Jews that died, including the 1.5 million children that were murdered, of which I would have been one of. And also to tell everybody [that] there is no room for hate," he said.

The Oakland Police Department increased patrols and security checks at synagogues in the city this weekend in response to the deadly attack, and several state and Bay Area elected officials condemned the shooting and offered messages of support on Twitter.