Poland in shock as mass shooting shatters sense of security
Germany, France and other European countries have already seen such brutal killings in markets and other public spaces.
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KRAKÓW: Police looking for clues turned over every stone and flowerpot in Krakow's eerily empty Main Market Square on Sunday (Nov 8) as Poland entered two days of mourning for six people mowed down by a gunman with suspected far-right sympathies.
Poland's deadliest gun rampage in decades, in which a British man and an Austrian woman were among the victims, has left the country feeling vulnerable to the mass shootings that have spread across Europe in recent years.
Dozens of police scoured the square the day after the frenzied killings in which the alleged 24-year-old gunman with a semi-automatic rifle drove around firing at random before a final battle with police.
Six people died and 15 others, including two police who halted the rampage, were wounded, according to authorities. Investigators found the bodies of the suspect's parents and a sister at his home.
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The gunmen wore military fatigues and there were more weapons in his car. Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski said the gunman appeared to be "fascinated by far-right ideologies".
Germany, France and other European countries have already seen such brutal killings in markets and other public spaces. But Poland has been spared.
"I'm absolutely devastated," Weronika Filar, 27, a Krakow resident, told AFP.
"It's one of the safest places on Earth genuinely... I did not expect anything like this to happen to us," she said. "Our city will never be the same."
Krzysztof Stepien, a part-time city guide, held up a sign offering tours to other parts of the city that remained open. But he was also in shock.
"We've heard of various incidents of this sort happening elsewhere in Europe," the 28-year-old said. "Nothing like this has ever happened here, and I hope it never will again."
Attack on 'our way of life'
Polish prosecutors launched a terrorism investigation.
A special mass was to be held at Krakow Cathedral on Sunday. Candles and flowers appeared around the stricken square and black ribbons were placed on the national flag.
"We want, we need and we must be together," Cardinal Grzegorz Rys, archbishop of Krakow, wrote as he announced the special service.
Filar added that she was "very proud" of the way the country has reacted to the tragedy.
"Society is united and we are very strong together because of what has happened."
Millions of zlotys were quickly collected to help the two wounded police officers who confronted the gunman.
One, Jakub Kulik, has been named as the hero of the drama. Social media images showed him shooting and wounding the gunman despite being hit himself.
"Our highest praise goes to the heroic police officers who risked their lives in the line of duty," said Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Police had appealed for blood donors to help Kulik "who without hesitation confronted an armed attacker". Long queues formed outside donor centres that were besieged with offers and said they could not cope.
But behind the solidarity and the pride, people know that Poland, already close to the frontline of the Ukraine-Russia war, has now changed.
This was also "an attack on Poland, on our way of life," the centrist Rzeczpospolita daily wrote in an editorial.
It was an attack on "a value we held so dear -- that sense of security, which, as it turns out, was merely an illusion," added commentator Boguslaw Chrabota in the editorial.
Chrabota accused Polish politicians of fostering divisions within a country where centrist prime minister is battling nationalist President Karol Nawrocki and a vociferous far right.
"Polish Breiviks are emerging," warned Chrabota, referring to the neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway on Jul 22, 2011.
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