Schoolboys apologise for Auschwitz theft

Two British teenagers who were suspected of stealing items that belonged to prisoners at Auschwitz have apologised, their school said.

The 17- year- old boys, who were on a school history trip, were spotted acting suspiciously yesterday at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland, Polish police said.

The boys, who were found with fragments of hair clippers, spoons, some buttons and two pieces of glass, werepupils at the private Perse School in Cambridge. Ed Elliott, the school’s headmaster, said: “It is sad that a situation of this kind had arisen in the course of a visit to a location such as this.

“The whole party was deeply aware of the scale of the tragedy associated with Birkenau and the other campsof theHolocaust. We apologise for the behaviour of these two pupils.”

The boys were apprehendedinwarehousenumber five – known as Canada – where the belongings of theAuschwitzarrivalswere seized during the Holocaust. The Holocaust Educational Trust’s chief executive Karen Pollock said: “This is absolutely shocking and shows gross disregard to the memory of the Holocaust.

“Every single artefact found at Auschwitz-Birkenau tells a story of the more than a million people who were ruthlessly murdered by the Nazis there and this incident serves to show why our work is crucial now more than ever.

“We have a duty to educate the next generation to prevent ignorance and hate, and in over 15 years of organising for thousands of British teenagers to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau, we have never known of such an incident.”