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.
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.
Maybe the genociders are also not jews, eh? Except for all those interviews where Israeli leaders spell it out with no possible room for denial.
Stupid fucking parents letting their stupid fucking kids get raised by the stupid fucking internet. I base this solely on just observation in the news about how “funny” nazi shit has become to edgy teenagers now a days. I also base this on the fact that every time an AI has been released to “learn” from the internet, it comes back a shitty hardcore nazi. I get that kids do stupid shit, but they deserve to find out what’s in store for them with this edge lord garbage.
I’m ranting like an old person now dammit!!!
Remember that Pewdiepie arranging, paying for, and posting separate videos of people holding signs saying “Hitler did nothing wrong”, and “Death to all Jews” were just jokes bro. To an audience of literally tens of millions of kids.
And people here still Stan for him. I’ll take my downvotes now.
Personally knowing some young Israeli’s.
A lot of them don’t take the holocaust very seriously and tend to joke about it a lot, (maybe it’s a coping mechanism)? In any case, this is probably a case of an edgy high schooler trying to make their friends laugh.
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It’s not that deep. Lots of teenagers do edgy stuff just because it’s edgy and not allowed.
He’ll look back in 10 years cringing about himself.
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The world is not that black and white my dude, go outside sometimes
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Touch grass, man. When people call zionists nazis, they mean they are genocidal ethno(-religious) fascists. They don’t literally mean they speak german, sport swastikas, heil hitler, and hate jews. Zionists despise literal nazis. I can’t believe this actually has to be explained.
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It makes sense, essentially by remaining oblivious and reductive about one act you can then allow yourself to also be blind to your own current amoral actions. Essentially it’s easier to stay dense than it is to actually face the reality you are a part of.
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I think most teenagers are not nearly so self-aware. Most people see things as in-group/out-group, simple as that. Doing a nazi salute was probably meant as am (ignorant) way to defy authority; teen most likely was not thinking about palestine at all.
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No – nazi salutes are not acceptable in Israeli culture. Nazi salutes are the ultimate anti-semitic gesture. Why would those be “expected”?
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I wonder how bibi is gonna spin this one into being antisemitism on the side of the people who reported the student.
"The Ministry of Education said that it had disciplined the student from an educational standpoint and that it would conduct an inquiry into the incident to ensure it did not happen again. “The Ministry of Education takes this serious incident very seriously. This is inappropriate behavior that completely contradicts Israeli educational values and the significance of the trip to Poland,” the ministry wrote in a statement, as reported by Channel 13 News. “The student was immediately addressed from both an educational and disciplinary standpoint and will undergo a full inquiry upon returning to Israel. Ministry officials will thoroughly examine the circumstances of the incident and formulate additional educational measures to ensure such incidents do not happen again.” Additionally, the Kiryat Bialik Municipality said in a statement that it would also be disciplining the student, Channel 13 News reported. "
Sounds like his school and community are planning on punishment.
I’m not going to give some asshat teenager the same level of shit as Elon. It’s a hell of a lot more likely in that context that he really was kidding, just distastefully.
For real… we are dealing with an edgy teenager here. Put away the torches people
You could be referring to either of them
if I was talking about Elon I’d have you ready the guillotine instead of putting away torches
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.
and should have no bearing on your opinion of Israel
The behavior of people from a place actually should impact your opinion on that place
Had it been an American there’d either be no comment like yours or it would have been massively downvoted, food for thought
Dear god I hope eel-on-musk goes to Poland and tries that. He so deserves to find out.
Edit: clarification: I’m saying I want him to be arrested somewhere that’s not the US
I cordially invite Elon to come to Melbourne Australia and flip his favourite salute.
Its a significantly more painful $23,000 fine there, and if he does it repeatedly there’s a good chance of a 12 month prison term.
https://www.vic.gov.au/fact-sheet-nazi-symbol-prohibition
P. S. If my maths is right he can do it almost 15 million times before he runs out of money, I might have to email Vic gov to ask them to review the fine to be wealth-adjusted.
That’s €376.10, not nearly enough imo.
its around $23000 here in Victoria, Australia
Only in one state of Australia, Victoria. Worth mentioning.
oh right, my mistake. i actually live in Victoria so i originally thought it was a federal law somehow.
Nah it’s all good - it’s confusing because federal-level hate crime and Anti-Nazi laws came in recently also (last month). Those are all mandatory minimum prison sentences though, no fines.
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