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.
They skipped over how old this person is. Somehow I think this is a teen doing dumb stuff.
An Israeli high school student […]
How old though
Old enough to know better.
17
Teens doing dumb stuff isn’t a hall pass. Actions have consequences. Those consequences take this into account and often are mitigated but still enforced
Yeah the kid got like a $400 fine and told not to do that again. I think that’s a fair punishment for doing something really really stupid as a teenager.
I’d thrown in some community service on top, or 24 hours in jail if that’s not feasible. Fines just go to the kid’s parents - who also deserve to be punished tbf, based on how badly they’ve raised their kid to behave.
Yeah I considered community service too, and I think it would be a fair alternative.
When I was young and dumb I got caught spraying some graffiti and got like 50 or 60 hours of community service. Which would equal like $6-8/hr, and I think that’s a pretty even trade.
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.
the fact that teenagers have underdeveloped reasoning skills
I can get that to a degree (like a 13 year old) but by 15 or 16 I expect about the same level of adulting as a US midwestern adult (not really a super high bar but enough to know that doing a nazi salute in a place dedicated to the memory of the victims of nazis while on a school trip from the only nation made up of the primary target of those same nazis, might be a life changing act).
I just don’t get the level of coddling that is now going on with an increasingly older limit of what is considered children. I remember working my first part time job at 13 and told by older people then they moved out at the same age (so I should stop complaining or some such), and now I am told about 25 year old “kids”. Its nuts, these are functioning people and although yes some stupid actions are expected when young there is no reason to not hold people to at least a modicum of responsibility.
… do you think Midwesterners have undeveloped reasoning skills on par with 16 year olds? I mean you readily admit that you expect stupid actions from them.
The fact that a 16yo has worse reasoning skills than an adult is fairly well researched. I wouldn’t call them a child though. But as a society we decided long ago that an <18yo isn’t held to the same standard of criminal liability as someone 18 or older. I don’t really know that I’ve seen what you’re referencing with 25 year olds being called kids. I just think there are too many folks in this thread that seem to think a high school student should go to prison for something like this.
Teens have a perfectly functional frontal cortex thing is they are still figuring out when to actually use it. They can be perfectly adult one moment, or in a particular area, and completely stupid in the other. Visiting Auschwitz, one might presume, would be a situation where an Israeli teen isn’t a rage of hormones. Be that when racing shopping carts.
Sense of right and wrong develops way earlier.
Are they sending their youth to teach them how to deal with Palestinians?
no, they already know that. they can learn from anyone around them. they go to auschwitz to learn the proudest traditions of their people, and why they can never be allowed to fail (at exterminating the brutes) again.
Edge Lord asked for that
Theodor returns.
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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.)
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
If it had been an American teenager, I doubt there would have been an article posted at all. But if there had been, I doubt such a comment would be downvoted.
I feel like a similar proportion of teenagers from Israel and America are idiots like this one. I remember many teenagers from my highschool (Canada) who would be this kind of dumb. Based on this, I don’t see why people would react differently to my comment, though maybe it’d come across different if the reader is American, not sure. (I think I’d make the same inference about Canadian high schooler as another country’s though.)
…that said, I do agree with you. I have noticed for instance that Japanese high schoolers in public seem to be incredibly polite compared to Canadian ones. You can make a small inference perhaps about the high schools from a country based on a single point of data like this. But – I don’t think this really says very much about the disposition toward Nazism (of the original German trappings) in the general Israeli public.
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.
Everyone did except this one guy. The other students didnt do this.
This also mirrors my experience at Aushwitz. Israeli teenagers were generally being dicks around the site and then unrolled several large Israeli flags to take group photos with.
Can’t blame the teens too much as their teachers had no problem with/promoted the behaviour.
I left the place traumatised, these kids… not so much.
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.
Israel is a middle eastern country with a middle eastern temperament. That is less reserved and controlled than Central Europeans. The majority of Jews in Israel are Mizrahi, descendants from Jews who fled the MENA region, not Europe. They tend to be a bit more noisy and dramatic.
It would be interesting to get the perspective of an Israeli who went on such a trip.
It’s also unclear how prevalent this issue is, or if it’s just a few cases tainting their image. There are lots and lots of Israeli school kids visiting Auschwitz. Probably more than any other nationality. So it might simply be explained by their numbers.
Yup, all fair points and why I was asking hoping OP or someone else might have insights. Thanks.
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.
About one in five Israelis are Arab - according to demographic figures.
I never know if they are Jewish or not, the groups themselves are distinct because they are always in large groups, with multiple guides and guards, but I can’t tell Jewish or non Jewish Israelis apart just by their faces. Idk why they behave like that. It’s all ages. I sometimes see them out in the city but I heard more chilling stories about them from a guy who operates a bus transfer business to Auschwitz.
[sigh] I’ll never understand this world.
When I was there a decade ago, people were taking selfies at the gas chambers. It was all a bit surreal to be honest. The museum is amazing, but the visitors were a mixed bag.
this reflects something i’ve been seeing rising here inemy hometown. when i was 15 i survived a terrorist attack. the whole community had a conversation about the appropriate way to address thiseand how to be respectful of the direct victims. 18 years later, you’d never even know we talked about any of that. the memorial is a popular place to take beaming graduation photos. the terrorist attack has been renamed in the popular lexicon from “place massacre” to “date shooting”. the institutions that promised us they saw and heard our pain and they would help us forge a new future are international sponsors of terror now.
it hurts. it hurts a lot.
I’m sorry you are going through that, my friend. May the path ahead be lined with good people and warm smiles. We often forget we live on a palimset of everything that came before.
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That’s so crazy it’s almost like people don’t like Nazis… 🤷
No need to put a stupid teenager in prison for a longer time for being stupid, but: A day or two behind bars on top of the fine might have had a better educational effect.
He didn’t do it on accident and was fully aware of what he was doing and where he was doing it. Lock that scum up I say.
No objection then.
You must be new to the world or just lacking experience in your adult life.
I guess you’ve never seen young people support bad guys specifically because it’s provocative. They don’t know any better and to assume that this kid wants a nazi regime because he did a hitler salute is asinine.
I could see him finding real support now among those who do want a nazi regime because of how he was treated by us. We should be compassionate with these kids instead of trying to beat them into submission.
If they’re doing it to be provocative, then they know exactly what they’re doing and why it’s bad. No sympathy for Nazi supporters or those who make light of Nazi atrocities. This kid deserves the punishment.
You’re free to think that, but I respectfully disagree.
If he kept doing it, sure. But taking him aside and talking to him could be more effective and less damaging than getting the authorities involved and humiliating him to “prove a point.”
Show him that we’re on the same side. If we treat him like an enemy when he really isn’t one, he very well may become one.
Less damaging to whom? To the kid who did a Nazi salute? Sure, definitely. How about to society? Tolerance for Nazis and Nazi symbology only emboldens Nazis and weakens everyone else. Especially in these times when fascists control the most powerful country on Earth.
You’re not tolerating it by taking him aside, explaining to him why it’s not acceptable even as a joke, and warning him not to do it again.
But the thing is, this is a 17 year student from Israel. Shouldn’t they already know how serious a Nazi salute is? A fine like this teen got is an absolutely acceptable punishment that will either a) teach him not to be such a dumbass, or b) that his shitty beliefs are not tolerated.
Could easily see this radicalizing him if he isn’t already.
It’s easy to make dumb edgy jokes as a teenager without actually believing whatever you’re joking about.
Humiliating this kid like this is really just trying to make an example out of him rather than solving any problem or helping him in any way.
This could’ve easily been solved by the teacher taking him aside and explaining to him why that’s not acceptable. If he keeps doing it after being warned, then it’s fine to escalate.
If you go there and don’t already know what’s going on you failed yourself already. Stupidity does not protect against punishment.
Stupidity does not protect against punishment.
It is for children.
Put him in the middle of Gaza with no help and see how funny he finds himself.
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Not per se, bit he’d have a more poignant look at persecution and extermination of people. If historical evidence falls to impress him maybe direct confrontation with violence might connect to his synapses
I took it as “Put him, alone, in the middle of people his country is currently genociding so so he can see the horrors of Genocide, the kind his own people once faced. This should reframe why his Nazi salute was a poor decision.” But I can see how it can be interpreted the other way by looking at the “with no help” part.
“He was just waving hello”
That’s what his co-student said. While that may be the case, it sure doesn’t sound like it, and they have the receipts so - I wouldn’t be betting a lot on that horse.
It says they have a video recording
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
Unfortunately, you are right.
if I was talking about Elon I’d have you ready the guillotine instead of putting away torches
People making political decisions over edgy memes lead to the rise of modern fascism in the US, stop treating it like it has no impact. Kid metaphorically talked shit, this is the proverbial get hit.
Fines and jail time is too much I think. I’d vote for a thorough reprimand and maybe cleaning the grounds from trash instead.
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
I just don’t nazi it…
Did they drove off in a Tesla ? (asking for a friend)
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A heartfelt gesture indeed. Remember everyone: Jury Nullification.
