British Teens Busted for Stealing Auschwitz Artifacts
Two British teenagers were arrested in Poland after police found in their backpacks items believed to be stolen from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum.
Polish police were notified Monday by museum security guards of the suspected theft of buttons, a fragment of a hair clipper, and a piece of a spoon which belonged to prisoners of Birkenau. The British teens, 17 and 18, were interrogated by police with the assistance of a translator on Monday and maintained their innocence, according to Deputy Inspector Mariusz Ciarka of the Malopolska police. They remain in police custody, the Krakow Gazette reported.
Ciarka told local media that the teens do not appear to realize the gravity of their alleged crime and are unfamiliar with “the dramatic history associated with Auschwitz. In contrast, museum staff are particularly sensitive to these types of incidents.”
If the teens are found guilty they could be jailed for one to 10 years, though a fine and probation are the more likely punishment.
Polish police were notified by museum security guards of the suspected theft of buttons, a fragment of a hair clipper, and a piece of a spoon which belonged to prisoners of Birkenau.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO