How do you even begin to process something like this?
Ten lives lost. A place of learning turned into a scene of heartbreak.
That’s the reality facing Austria after a deadly school shooting in Graz—the worst gun attack in the country’s modern history.
It happened at Dreierschützengasse secondary school.
Who’s The Suspect?
A 21-year-old former student who, after carrying out the horrific attack, took his own life in the school’s bathroom.
Armed with a pistol and shotgun, he acted alone, police said.
Seven of the victims were students—young people with their entire futures ahead of them.
“This strikes our country at its heart,” said Chancellor Christian Stocker, calling it a “national tragedy.”
Three days of mourning have been declared. Flags at Vienna’s Hofburg Palace now fly at half-mast.
And on the streets of Graz, people are lining up to donate blood, desperate to help in any way they can.
“It’s a hard day for all of us,” said one local resident in the queue.
Graz may be Austria’s second-largest city, but as journalist Fanny Gasser put it: “Everybody knows somebody.”
That’s what makes the pain feel even closer. In moments like this, one question lingers.
How do you heal when your sense of safety is shattered in a place meant to build your future?
