An Israeli high school student was arrested this Sunday by the Polish Police and fined as a result of a complaint for making a Nazi greeting at the entrance of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination field, in southern Poland, during a school trip.
The incident was confirmed on Monday by Oświęcim police spokeswoman (South), the Polish population where the countryside is located, Małgorzata Jurecka, who explained that the museum’s guards observed the young man making a Nazi greeting in front of the main door of the old Auschwitz I.
“The police gathered evidence confirming the adolescent’s behavior. Late in the afternoon (Sunday) he was accused of publicly exalting Nazism, “said the spokeswoman, who added that” the adolescent admitted the crime and voluntarily submitted to punishment, “after which a fine of about 350 euros was imposed.
The 17 -year -old was on a study trip organized by his high school, Kiryat Bialik.
A partner of his, cited by the Israeli media ‘The Times of Israel’, said that the young man was just greeting a partner to interrupt a photograph that she was trying to take from the famous entrance doors to the field with the infamous inscription “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“The work will make you free”).
“I told him to lower his hand because he didn’t look good,” said the young man’s partner, who also declared that “the security guards did not listen to anyone, they did not let us speak at all.”
However, in a video recorded by the students and broadcast on Polish television, you see how the young man raised his arm again when the girl tried to take a second snapshot.
In Poland, performing Nazi greeting is illegal under the laws that prohibit fascist symbols, and publicly exalting totalitarian ideologies or exhibiting symbols, clothing or gestures related to them can lead to sentences of up to two years in prison.
The Israeli Ministry of Education issued a statement in which it stated that it took “very seriously this unusual incident”, which described as “unacceptable and completely contrary to the values of Israeli education and the meaning of the trip to Poland.”
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum also condemned the incident in a statement published on the Internet: “to commit such an act at the site where Nazi Germany murdered approximately one million Jews, along with tens of thousands of Poles, Romanis, Soviet war prisoners and others, it is not only deeply offensive and morally reprehensible, but also a violation of the law.”
Each year, some 25,000 Israeli Jewish high school students make educational trips to Poland sites related to the Holocaust.
These trips, interrupted for three years by disagreements between the governments of Israel and Poland, have resumed in 2023.
In January 2022, a 29 -year -old Dutch tourist was arrested for doing Nazi greeting in the same place. It was fined, declaring that it was “a stupid joke” of which he regretted.
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