Dutch Tourist Detained and Fined for Making Nazi Salute at Auschwitz Site
The sign “Arbeit macht frei” (Work makes you free) is pictured at the main gate of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz in Oswiecim January 19, 2015. REUTERS/Pawel Ulatowski
A Dutch tourist was detained and fined for making the Nazi salute at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland on Sunday, police said.
The 29-year-old woman, whose name has not been released to the public, made the gesture while posing for a photo taken by her husband in front of the death camp’s main gate that says “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Sets You Free”), according to Agence France Presse. She was charged with engaging in Nazi propaganda, to which she confessed, and then issued a fine that she agreed to pay.
“She explained it away as a bad joke,” regional police spokesman Bartosz Izdebski told the Polish news agency PAP.
The woman’s husband was also detained and questioned by police.
Promoting Nazi propaganda is a crime in Poland, punishable by up to two years in prison. In 2014, two Turkish students were each fined and sentenced to a suspended six-month prison sentence for making Nazi salutes at the Auschwitz site.