Over practically 5 years, Rabbi Doris Dyen has listened to numerous horror tales from those that, like her, survived the mass capturing that killed 11 individuals at a Pittsburgh synagogue.

As she listened, Rabbi Dyen was additionally working by means of her personal traumatic reminiscence — of arriving on the Tree of Life synagogue and seeing damaged glass on the sidewalk after which listening to the gunman, nonetheless inside, nonetheless firing. But with every story she heard, the gathering of recollections from that horrible day started to really feel extra disjointed, or as she put it, like “pieces of a puzzle that were just floating in goop.”

It was solely as she sat by means of the extraordinary, graphic and emotional trial testimony of the final 9 weeks that the sequence of occasions started to take form, she stated in an interview on Wednesday, hours after 12 jurors unanimously determined that the gunman, Robert Bowers, must be sentenced to demise.

As the items got here collectively, Rabbi Dyen stated, it felt as if a roadblock had been lifted from the following stage of her life, permitting her — in some methods — to maintain going.

“I’m looking at a road that’s open now, whereas for this last four and a half years there hasn’t been a path,” she stated. “It’s just always been sort of waiting, waiting, waiting.”

Rabbi Dyen’s twin description of the trial as extraordinarily troublesome to endure and a obligatory accounting — “like this and that,” she stated, holding out each arms, palms upward — echoed sentiments from others who survived the capturing or misplaced family members in it.

“We, too, didn’t know a lot of the details that the prosecution knew,” stated Amy Mallinger, whose grandmother was killed within the capturing. “A lot of this we learned for the first time, sitting there. It was raw. It was real, and it’s hard to do.”

Many survivors stated that the trial was an vital a part of a tragic story.

“The only thing positive about the sentencing of a criminal is that this long slog is over,” stated Audrey Glickman, who had survived the capturing partially by hiding below a prayer scarf. “Had we not had this trial, the deeds of this criminal would have been glossed over in the annals of history. We now know, almost, the full story.”

Most households of the victims have stated that they supported a demise sentence, however some have been outspoken of their opposition to it. One, Miri Rabinowitz, whose husband was killed, stated executing the gunman can be a “bitter irony” as a result of her husband had been dedicated to “the sanctity of life.”

Abraham Bonowitz, who’s the chief director of anti-capital punishment group Death Penalty Action and has written about his opposition to the demise penalty within the Pittsburgh case from a Jewish perspective, stated appeals had been prone to drag the case on for years, “reopening wounds repeatedly.”

“Instead of fading to obscurity, this racist, antisemitic terrorist gains notoriety as a martyr for others who think like he does,” Mr. Bonowitz stated.

But to Ms. Glickman, it was nonetheless the proper resolution. Sentencing Mr. Bowers to demise, she stated, was not solely about executing him, but in addition about isolating him and his antisemitic views.

“The purpose of the death penalty is not so much punishing as cutting off a person from society, eliminating the evil, taking away the risk — the potential for infection and the possibility of further harm to citizens,” she stated. “Even if he sits alive on death row for decades, he is separated from others.”

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of the Tree of Life Congregation, who hid in a toilet to outlive the capturing, stated that many members of the group had been “stuck in neutral” because the case moved by means of the courts. “Now that the trial is nearly over and the jury has recommended a death sentence,” he stated, “it is my hope that we can begin to heal and move forward.”

Many kin of the victims gathered on the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh on Wednesday for a news convention the place some teared up as they listened to one another’s reactions to the decision. They stated they had been immensely grateful to the jurors who heard the proof during the last two months and to the prosecutors who tried the case.

Earlier, in a hallway of the towering federal courthouse in downtown Pittsburgh, sobs might be heard as households walked out of the courtroom.

Jean Clickner and her husband, Jon Pushinksy, who’re members of the Dor Hadash congregation, one among three that had been attacked contained in the synagogue, kissed one another as they left the constructing.

Ms. Clickner, a lawyer, stated she was in opposition to the demise penalty basically however didn’t fault the jurors on this case.

“It’s a very personal decision, so it is what it is, and I am glad to have this part over with,” she stated.

Campbell Robertson and Ruth Graham contributed reporting.