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.
Most of the time I would agree with this. If a teen gets caught stealing or vandalizing I think they need to be taught a lesson. However, this feels like something done just to break the rules which is on point for most teens.
I’d rather see teens getting away with stealing or vandalism than with normalizing Nazi shit (especially at a place like Auschwitz)
Nazi shit, from an israeli teen. I can’t wrap my head around chocking such a onion worthy act getting written off by “boys will be boys”.
Actually now I think on it, almost any time I hear about “dumb teen” stuff I think they get away with way more then what is healthy for society.
It’s about the fact that teenagers have underdeveloped reasoning skills and deserve some leniency while they develop their sense of right from wrong. As well just, if your goal is there being a net reduction of nazis in society, then imprisoning a teenager for throwing the salute is probably not going to achieve that.