Even as six hostages were taken by the gunman in the Jewish grocery store, around 30 others hid in a freezing cold storage room for about five hours, hoping they would not be found.
One of the shoppers, Johan Dorre, was able to call his friend and tell him that they had trapped themselves two floors below the ground floor, where the gunman had taken six hostages at gunpoint.
Then as the siege unfolded he called his uncle, who offered words of comfort as he waited behind police barriers with hundreds of anxious residents of the quarter who had been evacuated from their homes by Police.
“Johan and the others were terrified that they would be discovered by the terrorists and were forced to huddle together like frightened animals to avoid hypothermia,” another uncle Jacob Katorza said as quoted by Daily Mail, just minutes after hearing that his nephew had been freed unharmed.
The uncle added that it was the worst and longest five hours of his life. As soon as the police stormed the supermarket and were able to get the hostages out, parents and family members cried tears of joy and relief as they were reunited with their loved ones.
