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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The head of Rome's Jewish community, whose grandparents were killed at Auschwitz, visited the former Nazi death camp to commemorate the 70th anniversary of its liberation. He ended up spending the night at the police station after triggering an alarm.
Riccardo Pacifici and four other Italians stayed behind following ceremonies Tuesday after receiving permission to shoot footage of the site for an Italian broadcast. The gates were closed and they had an appointment to be let out by guards at 11:30 p.m.
Finishing early, they went to the main gate to leave but found the guards had not yet arrived. They thought they could get out from the visitor's center and got in by pushing through the window. When they opened a door to leave, the alarm went off.
Security guards came rushing in and asked to see their identification documents. They refused, prompting the guards to call police, who took them to the station for questioning, police spokesman Mariusz Sokolowski said.
There they were held from 11 p.m. until shortly after 5 a.m. until finally being released.
"They treated us like real criminals," said Fabio Perugia, the spokesman for the Rome Jewish community, who was one of the five questioned.
Sokolowski said security guards at Auschwitz should have been more attentive to the needs of the Italians, but that the Italians also should have used their phones to call for help when they realized they were trapped inside.
Pacifici tweeted throughout the ordeal, saying that their "only crime ... was to try to leave by a window!!!!"
However, police and museum officials said normal security procedures had to be followed. The visitor's center contains a post office, a shop, a donation box and an ATM, with money on site.
Sokolowski said the questioning took several hours because the Italian consulate was called and all the documentation was translated into Italian. He said the group was taken to a police station simply so that the bureaucratic procedures could be carried out in a more comfortable place.
Security at the site has been tightened in recent years after a number of attacks by vandals. The most dramatic occurred in 2009 when Swedish neo-Nazis stole the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign over the main gate and cut it into pieces. The sign was retrieved and repaired and a replica was put in its place.
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