A passenger is harassed on the train, and a dispute on the street threatens to escalate. Not everyone looks closely and certainly not everyone has the courage to intervene in a dangerous situation. Three personalities have now been honored with the XY Prize, whose courageous deeds saved fellow human beings.
Three everyday heroes have been honored with the XY Prize. They received the award from the Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser. The moderator of "Aktenzeichen XY... Unsolved", Rudi Cerne, led through the evening.
Award winner Tomas Weis from Rüdesheim wanted to smoke a cigarette last December when he noticed screams and a scuffle in a car. He spontaneously rushed to the two women in the car to help and saw that a man stabbed the driver with a knife. Ultimately, Weis managed to pull the attacker out of the vehicle and disarm him. The victim, the stabber's ex-wife, barely survived.
Award winner Sarah Jacobi from Stuttgart experienced something strange on the way to the supermarket: a man was walking on the sidewalk with a little girl who was crying and carrying her satchel. Jacobi asked himself: are they really father and daughter? She stayed close on the man's heels until he let go of the girl and walked towards the witness. He stammered that he was from the health department. Jacobi didn't believe a word and spoke to the girl: "Do you know the man, do you want to go with him?" The child shook his head. The perpetrator fled - in vain. A court sent him to a psychiatric hospital.
When a young Somali stabbed people indiscriminately in a Würzburg shopping street in June 2021, killing three, prizewinner Chia Rabiei showed courage. The kitchen helper Rabiei managed to interrupt the course of the crime with his courageous intervention and thus prevent further victims. The Kurdish asylum seeker confronted the assassin - with nothing more than his backpack. "Like a torero, Chia dances around the 24-year-old attacker with his backpack in front of his chest," his intervention was described in the laudatory speech. Eventually he got support from passers-by. Several men pushed the stabber back with poles and chairs. Finally, police officers appeared and arrested the perpetrator.
The XY Prize was brought to life in 2002 by Eduard Zimmermann, long-time moderator of the search program "Aktenzeichen XY... Unsolved", which is now managed by Rudi Cerne, and the ZDF editors responsible. Each award is endowed with 10,000 euros.
