Tourists caught stealing bricks from Auschwitz
July 16, 2018
The Hungarian nationals were detained after other visitors at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp spotted the pair loading bricks from the ruins of a crematorium into a bag, Polish police said Monday.
Security officers were alerted and police were called to the scene.
"The man and woman were charged with theft of a cultural asset. They both admitted to wrongdoing," regional police press officer Mateusz Drwal told Polish news agency PAP.
Read more: 4 out of 10 German students don't know what Auschwitz was
The 30-year-old woman and 36-year-old man were each fined €346 ($405) and handed a one-year prison sentence on probation.
"They explained that they had wanted to bring back a souvenir and didn't realize the consequences of their actions," Drwal said.
Read more: 'We are the last Auschwitz survivors'
Notorious concentration camp
Auschwitz-Birkenau is one of several death camps built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during the Second World War.
The Nazis murdered an estimated 1 million Jews there between 1940 and 1945. More than 100,000 others, including non-Jewish Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and resistance fighters, were also killed at the camp.
It was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979. All objects on its premises are protected.
nm/kms (AFP, dpa)
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