German Teacher Caught Stealing 10 Victims Items From Auschwitz

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By JTA July 3, 2014

A teacher from Germany was arrested at Auschwitz after being caught with items that belonged to Holocaust victims.

The 47-year-old educator on Tuesday admitted to taking the items from an area where possessions of the former concentration camp inmates had been stored during World War II. He said he wanted to show the items to his students, who are studying the Holocaust.

The teacher pleaded guilty and was levied a suspended jail sentence and a fine by a local court, the French news agency AFP reported. He could have faced up to 10 years in prison for stealing goods of special cultural importance.

The man’s bag held 10 items, including a fork, a fragment of scissors and pieces of pottery, gathered from an area where warehouses once stood. The warehouses, called “Canada” by the inmates, were set on fire at the end of the war by the Nazis.

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