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A Dutch tourist was detained in Poland for doing the Nazi salute. What happened?

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Ishita Srivastava
Ishita SrivastavaJan 24, 2022 | 19:37

A Dutch tourist was detained in Poland for doing the Nazi salute. What happened?

A 29-year-old woman and her husband were detained in Poland for performing the Nazi salute for a photograph. What happened?

An unnamed 29-year-old woman was detained in Poland for performing the Nazi salute at the site of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland. She made the gesture in front of the Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Sets You Free) gate. 

Press Officer of Małopolska police, Bartosz Izdebski said that guards at the Auschwitz Museum detained the Dutch tourist as she posed and her husband took a photo. The couple were then taken to the police headquarters at Oswiecim, where the husband was questioned as a witness.

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Later, the district prosecutor’s office in Oswiecim fined the woman, which she accepted. Izdebski also said that the woman described her actions as as a bad joke.

Public promotion of fascism is punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment in Poland.

Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

In 1939, Nazi Germany built the death camp in Oswiecim after occupying Poland at the start of World War II. In just over four-and-a-half years, Nazi Germany had systematically murdered at least 1.1 million people at Auschwitz. Almost one million people out of those murdered were Jews. The vast majority of these people were murdered in the complex of gas chambers at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp. Soviet troops liberated the Polish camp in early 1945. 

Last updated: January 24, 2022 | 20:04
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