Austria Mourns After a Deadly School Shooting

Even if the school is absent for at least a week, the students continued to come on Wednesday morning, the day after a fatal shooting in Austria amazed the country.

Instead of entering the modern buildings of their high school, they crossed the street to a protected gathering place, well completed from mourning people, sympathizers and journalists.

“What is really important now is to speak, to stay silent together, to listen,” said Paul Nitsche, 51, an evangelical pastor who teaches religion at school and who was standing in the street in front of the mourning zone.

On Tuesday, a former student killed or fatally injured at least 10 people in school, Borg Dreierschützengasse, in Graz, a calm and easy city which is the second largest in Austria, after Vienna. He then seemed to commit suicide in a school bathroom, police said.

Police said the shooter legally obtained his weapons, a handgun and a hunting rifle. Police said on Wednesday that they had found a pipe bomb when they searched the shooter’s home on Tuesday afternoon.

It was one of the worst school shots in Europe over the past decade.

The Austrian chancellor, Christian Store, canceled the appointments on Tuesday to go to Graz and declared three days of national mourning – including a moment of silence at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.

The news of the shooting shocked Austria, an Alpine nation where the rates of possession of firearms are high, but armed violence is relatively rare.

Wednesday morning, a title on the online site of Kronen Zeitung, the largest newspaper in the country, said: “The day after the outburst: Austria cries with Graz.”

State police said that the shooter was 21 and had already attended school but had never graduated. Six of his victims were women and three were men, Although the authorities have not published their names or ages, citing laws on confidentiality. Another victim, a teacher, died later in a hospital.

Outside school, makeshift sanctuaries of candles, flowers and animals in stuffed animals bordered the perimeter of the school. Investigators and firefighters still entered and came out of the premises, but otherwise the school buildings were dark and silent.

The lessons left for the rest of the week while school officials decide how to proceed. Summer holidays begin in early July, and many graduates have not yet passed their final exams before going to university.

“We are just speechless – it seems to come from nowhere,” said Simone Saccon, 20, a university student who spent his life in Graz. He saw near the school and was one of those gathered outside on Wednesday. “Is it something that you imagine happening in major cities or the United States, but that would happen here?” He added.

Pastor Nitsche was alone in a classroom when he heard the gunshots. His first instinct was to hide and wait. “It was as silent as if it was the middle of the night,” he said. “Everyone played dead – intelligent.”

After he seemed sure, he said, he ran in a corridor where he saw the shooter try to enter a locked door by pulling him. As he rushed, he saw the body of one of the victims, a young girl, and continued to run until he saw the police associated. “So many uniforms can be really comforting,” he said.

According to the police, the shooter committed suicide in a toilet.

Belkez Halici, 39, who lives in front of the school, was preparing for work on Wednesday, tears flowing on his face. She had tried to keep the news of her three children, but they had heard about it on social networks, she said, and they were turned upside down and frightened.

“I have always said that schools here are not safe,” said Ms. Halici. “With the people who come and go, it’s like a shopping center.”