Posted on 08/29/16
| News Source: Israel Hayom
Students from German school attack Jewish students at nightclub • "This wasn't a joke and it wasn't a prank," says Jewish official • German school principal: "This is a serious thing. They will be punished" • Jewish student: Other kids came to help us.
Jewish high school students at a graduation party at a nightclub in Argentina were verbally and physically attacked by students from another school dressed in Nazi costumes, Israel Hayom learned Thursday.
The incident took place on Tuesday night at a nightclub in the tourist town of Bariloche, in Argentina's Patagonia region. The attackers, from a German high school in the town of Lanus, near the capital Buenos Aires, had drawn Hitler mustaches on their faces and were wearing armbands with swastikas on them. They confronted several Jewish students from an ORT high school, hurling anti-Semitic obscenities at them. A fight broke out between the two sides, and the bouncers at the Cerebro de Bariloche nightclub removed everyone from the club.
Following the incident, the Bariloche Municipality asked that the company that organized the high school graduation trip prohibit the "Nazi" students from participating in any further events.
Silvia Fazio, the principal of the German high school in Lanus, said the students in question had been sent home and that they would be punished harshly.
"In this case a mere apology will not suffice. This is a serious thing. They will be punished and, among other things, we will send them to workshops and activities that deal with education against racism," she said.
Students from the ORT High School said they had asked the other students to remove the Nazi symbols before they were assaulted.
One ORT student said, "The problem is that the club bouncers also kicked us out instead of handling the racist attackers. They also kicked out students from other schools who came to help us. We don't understand why they let them in dressed like that in the first place."
Bariloche Mayor Gustavo Genusso told a local news outlet that he was appalled by the incident.
"It is troubling and unsettling and it needs above all else to trouble the parents and the education system. These are things that cannot be allowed to happen and everyone has to act on it," he said.
The head of the Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations, Ariel Cohen Sabban, said he would meet with the manager of the nightclub where the attack occurred.
"This wasn't a joke and it wasn't a prank," Sabban said. "These symbols are proof of an ideology that killed six million Jews. These kids, who are 16 and older, should get between up to three years in prison, because in Argentina what they did is a criminal offense."