BRATISLAVA, Dec 16 — Two Hungarian nationals and a Slovak-Australian woman were among 15 people killed in an attack on a Jewish celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, officials from both European countries said yesterday.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on social media that two Hungarian nationals were among the dead when a father and son opened fire on a Jewish festival on Sunday evening.
“Violence against religious communities is unacceptable. We express our condolences,” he wrote in a post on X, which did not provide more details about the Hungarian victims.
Earlier on Monday, the Slovak foreign ministry said in a statement that a dual Slovak-Australian citizen was also among those killed, with the country’s Jewish community naming the woman as Marika Pogany.
“Today, sorrow has reached Slovakia as well,” President Peter Pellegrini wrote on Facebook.
Anton Pasternak, chairman of the Jewish community in the southwestern town of Komarno, named Pagony and told AFP he knew her well as she used to visit regularly.
“She was very active and pleasant. She was kind... It affects us very deeply,” he said, adding she was with her friend by the sea when she was shot.
Sydney had been “a refuge” for Pogany, “far from the evils of fascism and communism”, Slovakia’s former president Zuzana Caputova said on Facebook, describing her as a close friend.
“Apart from her mother and uncle, who returned from Auschwitz, all other members of this ... family did not survive the Holocaust,” Caputova added. — AFP
