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Israeli teen admits to urinating on Auschwitz memorial
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A young orthodox Jew walks between the former death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau during the (AFP/Janek Skarzynski)
P
olish prosecutors on Monday said an Israeli teenager has admitted to urinating on a memorial at the site of the former death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, adding that he is willing to pay a fine.
The 19-year-old man committed the act in late March and was arrested the same day, according to Mariusz Slomka, prosecutor from the southern Polish city of Oswiecim.
"He confessed and over the course of the investigation expressed the wish to receive a fine of 5,000 zloty (1,200 euros, $1,400)," he told AFP.
A guide from the museum at the site and several other people witnessed the act, according to Slomka, who added that nothing suggested the teenager had been under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Under Polish law, this kind of offence normally calls for a fine or restriction of freedom, especially community service.
The memorial in question is located between the ruins of the two crematoriums at the former death camp set up by Nazi Germany after occupying Poland during World War II.
Auschwitz-Birkenau has become a symbol of Nazi Germany's genocide of European Jews, one million of whom were killed at the camp between 1940 to 1945.
More than 100,000 others including non-Jewish Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and anti-Nazi resistance fighters also died there.
