ARGENTINA – Students From German School Dress Up As Nazis & Attack Jews

I-24 NEWS – Students from a Jewish school in Buenos Aires were confronted by teens from a German school who were dressed in Nazi costumes, media outlets in Argentina reported this week.

Students from the ORT school reported that the incident occurred at a nightclub, where a group students arrived wearing armbands with swastikas and with Adolf Hitler’s famous mustache painted on.

The incident in Bariloche occurred at a costume party for 1,600 graduating students. Students from the German school reportedly shoved and insulted Jewish students, according to the La Nacional newspaper. No injuries were reported.

Bariloche, founded by a Chilean of German ancestry, is known to have become a haven for Nazi fugitives after the Second World War and the Holocaust. Former SS captain Erich Priebke was tracked down there in 1994 after decades of living in secrecy. He was convicted in 1996 for participating in a massacre of hundreds of civilians outside of Rome. Conspiracy-minded authors have theorized that Adolf Hitler never committed suicide but rather fled to Bariloche.

The students reportedly apologized, but Silvia Fazio, director of the German private school, condemned the incident and said that an apology was not enough. She said that the easiest way to respond would be to expel the students, but that it would be better to address the problem by trying to change the students’ mentality.

La Nacion reported that the students involved in the altercation and their parents had met to discuss the incident and agreed to attend a lecture at the Holocaust museum in Buenos Aires. The Museo del Holocausto Buenos Aires issued a statement condemning the anti-Semitic incident.

Ariel Cohen Sabban, president of the Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas, said that if the students were over the age of 16, they could receive between one month to three years in prison under Argentinean law.