Holocaust Survivor Who Fought Off Mugger Says ‘Ill’ Attacker Needs Treatment — Not Jail
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — A 91-year-old Holocaust survivor who fought off a purse snatcher said the alleged attacker arrested this week should not go to jail if she is mentally ill.
Gina Zuckerman, a Holocaust survivor from Poland, was 90 when she was jumped by a purse snatcher in September near New York’s Washington Square Park. The assailant tried to convince passers-by that she was Zuckerman’s health care aide. The nonagenarian was eventually thrown to the ground, but escaped from the attack with her purse, which contained about $10.
Lillian Maduro, 49, was arrested on Monday as the alleged attacker. She was ordered held on $50,000 bond or $25,000 cash bail.
“I am not vengeful, I just think this is a terrible thing for her to do,” Zuckerman told the New York Daily News. “I’ve been thinking about the lady, and I think she should go to a mental hospital. I don’t think she should go to a jail.”
Zuckerman, who required five stitches in her arm after the attack, spent six years in a German labor camp after the Nazis invaded her home country in 1939.
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