Israeli school pupils caught dancing naked at Nazi death camp

Teenagers filmed by security cameras stripping off during Poland trip

independent.co.uk

Two Israeli teenagers have reportedly been caught on video dancing naked at a former Nazi death camp during a school trip to Poland.

Security cameras filmed the pupils stripping off at Majdanek, a concentration camp which now houses a museum and memorial to victims of the Holocaust.

They were expelled from the trip and forced to fly home after security staff saw the footage and notified authorities, Haaretz reported.

Israel’s Education Ministry said it “views with great severity any behaviour that could harm the status and values represented by the trips to Poland”.

“In the case in question, due to the students’ improper and inappropriate behaviour, disciplinary actions have been taken against them to the fullest,” it added. “They were returned to Israel, and the educational institution intends to use appropriate discipline methods.”

The teenagers were reportedly in the 11th grade – the penultimate year – at a high school in Beit She’an, a city in northern Israel.

The Emek Hamayanot Regional Council, which oversees schools in the region, described the pupils’ behaviour as “a severe disciplinary violation” and promised an investigation.

The pupils are believed to have been filmed stripping off over the weekend at the camp, on the outskirts of the city of Lublin in central Poland.

An estimated 80,000 people, including 60,000 Jews, were murdered by the Nazis at Majdanek between October 1941 and 1944.

Under Polish law, those who desecrate a monument or public place devoted to a historical event or person can be punished with a fine or prison.

One of the students, who reportedly exposed his backside at Majdanek, was fined. The other teenager was given a warning.

In March, a 19-year-old Israeli man was fined $1,500 (£1,060) after he was caught urinating on a memorial for victims at the Nazi death camp Auschwitz.

Last year Holocaust survivors voiced anger over a video, filmed by a Polish artist, depicting naked people playing tag in a gas chamber at a former Nazi concentration camp near Gdansk.

In 2014, eight shoes belonging to Holocaust victims were stolen from an exhibition in Majdanek’s museum.