An Israeli high school student was arrested and questioned by police for doing a Nazi salute during a school trip to Auschwitz, Israeli media reported on Sunday.
The teenager from Kiryat Bialik was on his school’s field trip to Poland when he did the gesture under the entrance sign to the camp.
He was questioned for two hours by Polish police and was fined approximately NIS 1,500 after security guards observed him performing the salute. The museum also captured the incident on its security cameras; the footage was handed over to the police.
Polish police charged him with promoting Nazism, local media reported. Performing a seig heil is illegal in Poland, and carries a potential sentence of up to two years in prison.
It wasn’t a Nazi salute. It was a heartfelt and perhaps ill-advised gesture that, in the moment, could be misinterpreted as a Nazi salute. I think we shouldn’t be so quick to jump to conclusions.
/s
This is an idiotic teenager and should have no bearing on your opinion of Israel. (I shouldn’t have to say this, but if I don’t somebody will m’accuse: please note that I’m not defending Israel.)
Ben Gvir, Netenyahu, and Smotrich go on tv all the time calling for ethnic cleansing and war crimes. Should that have any bearing on my opinion of Israel?
Don’t really want to engage with an obvious troll, but yeah when the head of state says something like that, it should tell you all you need to know. I’ve seen idiotic teenagers from all over the world say idiotic things enough to know not to judge a society by their teenagers.
If you want to ignore the obvious thats on you. And if you want to paint my citations of the facts reported in network news as “trolling” then its reality itself that you have a problem with.
wha? No, I agree with you about Netenyahu etc.
eh, yeah. I guess I am loathe to excuse a teens misbehavior when it just reinforces the criminality of his government, but broadly speaking I do agree that teens arent capable of understanding their own actions like adults should be. I get the feeling theres a lot of apologists here saying One teen doesnt represent much, and how do we know the teen is even jewish, to try to make the issue go away, and I see a lot of disenganuous arguing by the zionists so I get an itchy finger on that. Anyway, my apologies, your reasoning is sound, if inconvenient.
I’m stunned … again !! … I have visited Auschwitz and it’s impressive beyond words. At the entrance of the former gas chambers there is a sign asking to respect and remember those who died in there and keep silent in the chambers. Everyone did except for Israeli students. That is what brought the tears to my eyes. Betrayed and disrespected again, this time by their own.
Oh believe me, Israeli trips in Kraków are the worst kind of tourists in every aspect possible. They are louder than British stag parties, more obnoxious than Americans and their favourite thing is crying about antisemitism when they are removed from somewhere for causing disturbances or making a huge mess. They do not understand the idea of rubbish bins and you can trace their paths by following cigarette butts, empty crisps packets and spit.
Is there any chance the ones making all the ruckus and disrespect were non-Jewish Israelis? That’s not an excuse but it makes it make more sense than actual Jews being so disrespectful. And if it is young Jews doing it, can you make it make sense? Do you have some sense for why / how they might be thinking?
Keeping in mind just being bad tourists doesn’t quite explain it. Kids groups tend to be shite tourists no matter where they are from. But even I knew as a 10yo not to act stupid when visiting some of the more somber locations I went to in the US; no less as a 21yo when I visited Dachau as a non-Jew.
The Palestinian Arabs are too busy being bombed to go visit the holocaust museum.
Avoiding the obvious hot button issue, I’ll just say I was assuming the observation could have pre-dated the current war AND there are other non-jews in Israel than just Palestinians.
Israel didn’t exist before the current war. Palestine has been suffering an invasion and the occupation of its sovereign territory since 1948.
