Slovak-Australian woman among Bondi Beach attack victims

A Hanukkah menorah was projected onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House in memory of the victims of a shooting at Bondi Beach. Photo / David Gray, AFP

A Slovak-Australian woman was among 15 people killed in an attack on a Jewish celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, Slovak officials have said.

The country’s Jewish community named the woman as Marika Pogany but no other details were given.

The Slovak foreign ministry said in a statement that a dual Slovak-Australian citizen was among the dead when a father and son opened fire on a Jewish festival on Sunday evening.

“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.

-Agence France-Presse