British school pupils arrested for theft on Auschwitz visit

Flickr by Albert Mock

TWO British teenagers have been arrested by police in Poland in connection with the theft of artefacts from the museum at Auschwitz.
The 17-year-old boys had been taken to visit the site of the death camp by their school, the £15,000-a-year independent Perse School in Cambridge, as part of their history course.
The two have not been named, but police confirmed that they had been detained at 3pm on Monday June 22, and held overnight in a centre for young offenders. A spokesperson said they were being questioned regarding the attempted theft of items including a comb, buttons and spoons, but were refusing to cooperate with the investigation.
The headmaster of the 400-year-old Perse School, Ed Elliot, said it was too early to comment directly on the incident, but that he viewed such trips as a vital part of his students’ understanding of the events of the Second World War. He said that the school party were “aware of the scale of the tragedy” of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where 1.5 million people, mainly Jews, were killed.
The British Foreign Office confirmed the arrests, and said: “We are in contact with the Polish authorities and stand ready to provide consular assistance.”

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