The incident happened on Tuesday night but was reported only on Thursday. The boys were on a holiday in Bariloche, in southern Argentina, when they dressed up in their Nazi costumes and got into a brawl with students of the Jewish school ORT.

Director of the German School, Silvia Fazio said she was "shocked" and that the incident was "despicable." Excuses were not enough, and the guilty persons would have to compensate for their wrongdoing, she said, adding that the students would be punished on their return to Buenos Aires.

Fazio emphasized that her school had nothing to do with the trip, but many things had apparently gone wrong. Neither the boys' parents nor the party organizers monitored the situation. "There is a lot of thinking to be done," she told German news agency DPA.

Cohen Sabban, the president of the Jewish umbrella organization in Argentina, DAIA, said the incident was not a trivial crime. It represented an ideology that resulted in the death of six million Jews. The group tweeted this picture of the party.

If the boys are over 16 years of age, they could be sentenced to anywhere between one month and three years in prison.

Bariloche is a popular holiday resort in Southern Argentina. It hit the headlines in 1994 when a former Nazi SS chief Erich Priebke was found hiding there for over four decades.

Auschwitz doctor Josef Mengele, as well as SS officer Josef Schwammberger, were also found to have spent time in the city.

mg/jil (dpa)