A group of vile teens have been caught making a neo-Nazi pose at the gates of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. Another group of German students sparked outrage after being filmed belting out a nationalist chant at Bergen-Belsen.
The first group, who were on a school trip from a German high school, made the gesture just a few metres from where the Nazis industrialised the murder of 1.1million people during the Holocaust. While it may seem like the kids are just making a simple “OK” sign, the hand signal has actually been adopted by white supremacist groups, according to the Times.
One of the boys, who were reportedly from the German city of Görlitz, which sits on the border with Poland, posted the image on his Instagram account, with a spokesman for their school announcing they had been disciplined a short while later. According to the Scultetus High School representative, the boys have been forced to do volunteering for people with disabilities.
In Germany, as well as in Austria and Slovakia, the Nazi salute is illegal. However, the sign the boys made is not under current law. However, there are a number of guidelines for visiting these grim memorials of cruelty, which include maintaining a respectful silence and avoiding any behaviour that could cause offence.
In the past, visitors have also been caught trying to steal pieces of the infamous iron gates, or the train tracks that carried the prisoners to their deaths, all of which are prohibited.
Clemens Arndt, from the Saxony state education office, told the German tabloid Bild: “The pupils were made aware of their misconduct. The headmistress confirmed that the four pupils had understood.”
Another group of students – whose school claims it’s “without racism” – are alleged to have sang “Germany for the Germans, foreigners out” while visiting a memorial at Bergen-Belsen. When the camp was liberated by the British Army in 1945, they found 60,000 severely ill and malnourished prisoners, and an additional 13,000 unburied corpses.
In January, fifty five Holocaust survivors arrived at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, 80 years after it was finally liberated on January 27th 1945. Polish President Andrzej Duda said he was honoured to join the “last survivors” to lay their candles at the wall of death.
“Through this memory the world never again lets such dramatic human catastrophe happen and to be more precise, a catastrophe of humanity because representatives of one nation were able to cause such horrible unimaginable pain and harm upon other nations and especially upon the Jewish nation, he said at the time.
“…Today we are also seeing the last survivors coming to this site…It is a dreadful testimony of the extermination conducted by Nazis Germans…
“May the memory of all the murdered live on, may the memory of all the dead live on, may the memory of all those who are suffering live on, may they rest in peace.”
At Reach and across our entities we and our partners use information collected through cookies and other identifiers from your device to improve experience on our site, analyse how it is used and to show personalised advertising. You can opt out of the sale or sharing of your data, at any time clicking the “Do Not Sell or Share my Data” button at the bottom of the webpage. Please note that your preferences are browser specific. Use of our website and any of our services represents your acceptance of the use of cookies and consent to the practices described in our Privacy Notice and Cookie Notice.
