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Friday, May 15, 2009
Racist tirade ends Auschwitz visit for Viennese students
By Thomas Hochwarter

A group of students from Vienna has been thrown out of Auschwitz after they shouted Nazi insults during a tour of the death camp, it emerged last night

The pupils from the Gymnasium Albertgasse in Vienna-Josefstadt said: "There must have been a reason why Jewish people were gassed" and "All Jews should simply be gassed" while a survivor of the camp, who guided the group on a day late April, looked on.
More than 400 students aged between 15 and 17 from various schools were present when the incident occurred at an event organised by the association "March of Remembrance and Hope" (MORAH).

The students were sent home after teachers in charge of the group were unable to get them to stop them.

Vienna education authorities said they are investigating the case and that the students could be expelled and the teachers fired.

A decision is expected on Monday.

Albertgasse headmaster Helmuth Hickel refused to comment other than to say that the school had launched an internal investigation.

MORAH spokesman Olivia Pixner-Dirnberger said the incident highlighted that Anti-Semitism was not just a fringe concern but remained a serious problem. He added the vast majority of students and teachers who attended the event in the Polish town where the camp is located, had behaved "highly sensitively."

This incident is the latest in a series incidents highlighting what many see as the continued presence of right-wing extremism in Austrian society.

Two Upper Austrian teenagers are currently in custody after admitting firing plastic bullets at concentration camp survivors at Ebensee last Saturday.

Three more youngsters have been interviewed as well while investigations are ongoing. The teenage suspects are facing ten years in prison for their actions.

The two suspects remaining in custody are just 14 years old. Prosecutors warned they could carry out more attacks if they were allowed to go free.

Apart from investigating accusations that they shot plastic ammunition at the camp survivors while shouting "Sieg Heil!", police are also looking into eyewitness reports that they threw stones at the groups from France and Italy.

Meanwhile, Tyrol tourist officials are outraged after a newspaper article revealed that a Jewish family had been turned away from a hotel in the town of Serfaus.

Irmgard Monz, manager of the "Haus Sonnenhof" apartment hotel reportedly turned the family away because of "bad experiences" with members of the Jewish community in the past.

Austrian Times