The head of Rome’s Jewish community found himself locked into Auschwitz on Tuesday night and then arrested when he tried to escape.
Riccardo Pacifici was doing a television interview after the ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the camp’s liberation, when he realised the camp’s gates had been closed.
Mr Pacifici was locked in with Jewish community spokesman Fabio Perugia, the television host and two technicians.
Mr Pacifici, whose grandparents died in the camp, spent an hour outside in freezing conditions trying to alert someone to their predicament. The group then set off an alarm when they tried to escape through an open window, alerting the museum guard and several Polish police officers.
Mr Pacifici and the other members of the group were arrested and interrogated at Auschwitz until 2.30am.
“They arrested us and treated us roughly as though we were criminals,” community spokesman Mr Perugia told Haaretz.
“More and more police were summoned until there were some 12 officers who held us in the camp.”
The group was moved to the local police station and eventually released at 6am after several hours of questioning through an interpreter summoned by the Italian foreign ministry.
Pacifici described the incident as “madness” and “shameful.”
Read more at The Telegraph.
{Matzav.com Newscenter}
