Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Dutch Students Prank Jewish Classmate With Death Camp Dorm Room

University students in the Netherlands redesigned the dorm room of a Jewish classmate with motifs from a Nazi death camp during the Holocaust, Dutch media reported.

The incident at Leiden University, which was reported by the Dutch daily Volkskrant, involved members of the prestigious Minerva Society, the oldest student association in the Netherlands.

Several seniors are believed to have redesigned the room of a freshman living in the university’s dorms as a prank. According to the Volkskrant, the redesign is a humoristic initiation rite for freshmen in which seniors come up with creative ideas on how to reshape one room.

A video of the room obtained by Volkskrant shows a bare room with mass graves painted on its floor, barbed wire hung on pipes and the German words “Arbeit macht frei” spray-painted on the walls – a reference to the slogan meaning “work makes you free” that Nazis hung on several death and concentration camps.

There were also train tracks painted on the walls in an apparent reference to the trains in which Nazis deported Jews to their deaths. A large Nazi swastika made of sticks also was displayed on one wall.

Some unconfirmed reports said the freshman in question was Jewish, Volkskrant reported.

Max Grapperhaus, the head of the Minerva student association, declined to confirm or deny the reports.

“Whether Jewish guys live there or not, such activities are inappropriate and cannot be tolerated,” he said, according to Volkskrant.

Some residents of the dorm in question have been barred from Minerva events following the incident, which Grapperhaus said was not part of the organization’s official activities, the daily reported.

Leiden is looking into further disciplinary actions, including expulsion, against those responsible for the activity.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.