The owner of a Paris bar where 19 people were gunned down during Friday’s terrorist attacks held his bleeding wife’s hand until she “left in peace.”
Gregory Reibenberg was hosting a 35th birthday party for Houda Saadi.
It was 9:30 p.m. and the terrace at La Belle Equipe (“The Beautiful Team”) was packed with revellers.
The gunmen drove up in a black car, pulled out their assault rifles and fired repeatedly at the crowd before driving away. It was the fifth target of the night.
Reibenberg’s wife, Djamila, was fatally injured in the attack.
“It’s clear, I remember everything,” Reibenberg told CTV Chief Anchor Lisa LaFlamme.
“I take the hand of my wife until she leaves in peace -- not slowly, I know it.”
As Djamila lay dying, Reibenberg promised her that their eight-year-old daughter Tess would be cared for.
“I say, ‘Don’t worry about our daughter.’ I know she heard me,” he said.
That same night, a grief counsellor, Jean-Pierre Vouche, visited Tess. He took the girl onto her balcony and told her to choose a star in the sky.
“It’s the star of your mother, and you speak to that star,” Vouche told the girl.
Reibenberg said he knew every single person who died Friday night at his bar -- including staff, family and friends.
“They were all colours, all religions, poor, rich, beautiful people -- my people,” he said.
At least 129 people were killed with bombs and bullets during the assault on the French capital Friday night.
With a report from CTV Chief Anchor Lisa LaFlamme in Paris
