US bishop apologizes for school’s Auschwitz Halloween parade float

A bishop in Pennsylvania on Friday apologized for a Catholic school parade that featured a copy of the Auschwitz death camp gate.

Reverend Timothy C. Senior, the bishop of Harrisburg, said he was “shocked and appalled” by the Halloween float from the Saint Joseph Catholic School in Hanover, Pennsylvania.

Senior described the float as a replica of the Auschwitz gate, including the words “Arbeit macht frei,” or “Work makes you free.”

The slogan is an infamous symbol of the camp, where more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, were murdered. The Auschwitz Memorial museum has called the slogan a “cynical welcome” for prisoners, who were expected to be killed in the camp.

“The inclusion of this image — one that represents the horrific suffering and murder of millions of innocent people, including six million Jews during the Holocaust — is profoundly offensive and unacceptable,” Senior said in a statement.

“While the original, approved design for this float did not contain this imagery, it does not change the fact that this highly recognizable symbol of hate was included,” he said. “I express my sincere apology to our Jewish brothers and sisters.”

Video from the parade showed the float pulled through a town street by a pickup truck with around a dozen children marching alongside. The float had a display with pumpkins, ghosts and lights, followed by the gate and replica tombstones.

The meaning of the float and the reason for the inclusion of the Auschwitz gate were not clear.

Senior has pledged to work with the Pennsylvania Jewish Coalition and Anti-Defamation League to educate local schools about the Holocaust and contemporary antisemitism, the statement said.

The local York Jewish Community Center and area Jewish federations said they were “deeply alarmed” by the float and thanked Senior for his response.

“The recent use of Nazi imagery on a float in a Halloween parade in Hanover is another painful reminder that hateful symbols and rhetoric still find their way into public spaces,” the groups said in a joint statement. “These acts, intentional or not, contribute to fear and anxiety among Jewish individuals and all who understand the devastating history those symbols represent.”

The Anti-Defamation League said in September that Pennsylvania has seen a rise in antisemitism in the past two years, with 465 antisemitic incidents recorded in 2024, the fourth-highest for the US.