WARSAW, Poland — Polish police said on Sunday they had detained a Dutch tourist for giving the Nazi salute at the site of the former death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
“Officers from (the southern city of) Oswiecim detained a 29-year-old woman from the Netherlands today,” regional police tweeted.
“The tourist had been performing the Hitler salute in front of the ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ (Work Sets You Free) gate,” they added.
“The detainee was charged with engaging in Nazi propaganda. She confessed.”
Prosecutors issued her with a fine as punishment, which she accepted, according to the Polish news agency PAP.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition
by email and never miss our top stories
By signing up, you agree to the
terms
It added that she was caught in the act by guards while posing for a photo taken by her husband.
“She explained it away as a bad joke,” regional police press officer Bartosz Izdebski told PAP.
Nazi Germany built the death camp in Oswiecim after occupying Poland during World War II.
The Holocaust site has become a symbol of Nazi Germany’s genocide of 6 million European Jews, one million of whom died at the camp between 1940 and 1945 along with more than 100,000 non-Jews.
We can't do this work alone.
The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.
There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.
As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can't do this alone. If you value work like this, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.
— Stav Levaton, military reporter
Yes, I'll join
Yes, I'll join
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You're a dedicated reader
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Join Our Community
Join Our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
