The local diocese says it is “dismayed.” In Hanover, a small town in Pennsylvania, a Catholic school included a portico that imitated the entrance gate to the Auschwitz concentration camp on a float in the Halloween parade this Thursday, October 30. The replica bore the infamous motto “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work Makes Free”, in German), inscribed at the entrance to many Nazi camps.
According to a broadcast of the Hanover parade available on YouTube, the Saint-Joseph Catholic School float, pulled by a van, included other elements such as tombstones, pumpkins, ghosts on a swing and even a jukebox.
The bishop “dismayed and dismayed”
The Jewish Community Center of York, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and the Jewish Federation of Harrisburg denounced, in a joint statement cited by the local network CBS21, “intentional or unintentional acts” that “cause fear and pain among the Jewish people and all those who understand the weight of these symbols.”
In a statement issued Friday, the bishop of the local Harrisburg diocese, Timothy C. Senior, said he was “shocked and dismayed,” NBC News reports.
“The inclusion of this image, which depicts the horrific suffering and murder of millions of innocent people, including six million Jews during the Holocaust, is deeply shocking and unacceptable,” he condemned, apologizing to “our Jewish brothers and sisters and all those who were hurt.”
According to the cleric, the original tank project did not include references to the Auschwitz camp. He indicates that he wants to talk to the Saint-Joseph school so that such an incident does not happen again and to work with associations to raise awareness among students about the Shoah. The college reposted the bishop’s statement on its Facebook account, without making any additional comment.
CNN notes that the incident comes amid a rise in anti-Semitic acts in the United States. According to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitic acts increased in 2024 in the country for the fourth consecutive year, reaching its highest level since the organization began recording them.
Source: BFM TV
