Four bullet holes have been found in the door of a former rabbi’s residence adjoining an old synagogue in the German city of Essen.

A regional security official said a suspect is being sought in what he called an attack.

Police in the western city said witnesses alerted them to the bullet holes on Friday morning.

They said no one was hurt, there was no danger to the public and they were looking into the circumstances of what happened.

A video police have may show a person firing at the door but they could not give more details because of the poor quality of the recording.

The interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, Herbert Reul, said “the attack on the old synagogue in Essen shakes me deeply”, German news agency dpa reported.

He said video recordings were being evaluated and police are looking for a male suspect.

The rabbi’s residence is not currently occupied by anyone but houses a German Jewish history institute, according to city authorities.

The old synagogue is now Essen’s House of Jewish Culture.

Members of the Jewish community worship at a new synagogue elsewhere in the city but occasionally meet at the old one for special occasions, such as commemorations of the November 9 1938 Nazi pogrom in which Jews across Germany and Austria were terrorised.

The old synagogue and rabbi’s residence were set alight during that pogrom, which was known as Kristallnacht — the “Night Of Broken Glass” — and their interiors were destroyed.