An 88-year-old Holocaust survivor injured in a firebombing outside the Boulder County Courthouse, is asking a question that now echoes across the nation: “What the hell is going on in our country?”
Barbara Steinmetz, the eldest of the 12 victims injured while peacefully advocating for Israeli hostages, believes the attack was driven not just by hate, but by something darker. “It has to do with a human being that wants to burn other people,” she said, her voice steady but stunned.
Two days after the assault, Steinmetz, who once survived the horrors of Nazi Germany, now finds herself facing modern American antisemitism—again asking the question too few dare to answer.
“What the hell is going on?” she wondered.
“We’re Americans. We’re better than this,” she added.
Steinmetz said she “wants people to be nice and decent to each other, kind, respectful [and] encompassing.”
“That’s what I want them to know. That they be kind and decent human beings,” she said.
From The New York Post:
Rabbi Marc Soloway, who leads Congregation Bonai Shalom in Boulder, where Steinmetz is a member, said she suffered minor burns but should fully recover.
The faith leader wondered how someone who escaped the horrors of the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were slaughtered, could comprehend the hate Steinmetz experienced on Pearl Street 80 years after the end of World War II.
“Can you imagine the trauma that that reactivates?” Soloway said. “It’s just horrendous.”
Steinmetz and others among the mostly elderly demonstrators were attacked allegedly by Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman while they were peacefully partaking in a weekly “Run for their Lives” walk to show solidarity with the 58 Israeli hostages still in Hamas’ hands.
The suspected terrorist, who had illegally overstayed his visa, shouted “Free Palestine” and other antisemitic slogans as he blasted the group with a homemade flamethrower and Molotov cocktails, even setting himself on fire.
Soliman’s family was taken into federal custody on Tuesday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed in a video message on X.
The move follows rising scrutiny over Soliman’s immigration status and deepens questions about how a man accused of such violence remained in the country unchecked.
“Mohamed’s despicable actions will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but we’re also investigating to what extent his family knew about this horrific attack,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in an X video post on Tuesday afternoon. “If they had any knowledge of it or if they provided any support to it.”
Today, @DHSgov and @ICEGov are taking the family of suspected Boulder, Colorado terrorist, and illegal alien, Mohamed Soliman, into ICE custody.
This terrorist will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this… pic.twitter.com/fcjMiyWil7
— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) June 3, 2025
More over at The New York Post:
Holocaust survivor burned in Colorado terror attack speaks out: ‘What the hell is going on in our country?’ https://t.co/uft6VjAyZE pic.twitter.com/GDkl3TlL4F
— New York Post (@nypost) June 4, 2025
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