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Interior of a crematorium at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. PA Images
Poland
Tourists charged with stealing bricks from an Auschwitz crematorium
The two Hungarians admitted their actions and were fined.
TWO HUNGARIAN TOURISTS have admitted to trying to steal bricks from the ruins of a crematorium at the site of the former Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, according to police.
The 30-year-old woman and 36-year-old man were caught yesterday when another pair of foreign tourists saw them stuffing the bricks into a bag and notified security.
“The man and woman were charged with theft of a cultural asset. They both admitted to wrongdoing,” said regional police press officer Mateusz Drwal.
“They explained that they had wanted to bring back a souvenir and didn’t realise the consequences of their actions,” he told the Polish news agency PAP.
The Hungarian tourists were each fined 1,500 zloty (€350 euros) and handed a suspended sentence of one year in jail.
Auschwitz-Birkenau has become a symbol of Nazi Germany’s genocide of European Jews, one million of whom were killed at the camp between 1940 to 1945.
More than 100,000 others including non-Jewish Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and anti-Nazi resistance fighters also died there.
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