Riccardo Pacifici speaks of shock at finding himself and television crew locked in and then ‘farce’ as they are held by police

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Rome’s top Jewish leader, some of whose family members died in Auschwitz, has spoken of his shock at being trapped in the visitors’ centre of the Nazi death camp on Holocaust Memorial Day and then being questioned by Polish police.

Riccardo Pacifici and a television crew had been filming until 11pm for a piece to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the camp’s liberation when they realised that the guards who were meant to let them out had not arrived and the camp had closed.

They escaped by climbing out of a window, but then faced hours of questioning by police after setting off an alarm. Italian diplomats intervened, finally ending what Pacifici called a surreal episode.

“For me, I have lost part of my family here. My grandparents died here. It was shocking,” he told the Italian newspaper La Stampa.

Pacifici and others were held for longer than necessary because the police were looking for interpreters to help question them.

“We were not afraid but we were stunned by this farce, in which even the Polish police don’t know what to do,” he said on Twitter. In a separate tweet he labelled the saga “a disgrace”.

Riccardo Pacifici (@riccardpacifici) Siamo stati sequestrati da un ora dalla polizia polacca dentro Auschwitz dopo trasmissione di Matrix. Una vergogna

“They treated us like real criminals,” said Fabio Perugia, the spokesman for the Rome Jewish community, who was one of the five questioned.

Although Pacifici described the incident as an accident, he said it revealed flaws in the site’s security system.

The infamous Arbeit Macht Frei (Work sets you free) sign that greeted victims as they entered the concentration camp, where more than a million people were murdered during the second world war, was stolen in 2009 but then recovered a few days later.

Pacifici tweeted about his experience on Thursday, thanking the acting Italian president, Pietro Grasso, who had phoned him, for showing his solidarity after the experience.