Young Men Steal the Auschwitz Sign - 2009
In the infamous Death Camp Auschwitz, there is a large bronze sign above the gate which reads "Arbeit Macht Frei" which translates into 'Work Sets you Free'. This would be the first thing that the new arrivals of the camp would see back in the days of the War. In 2014 it was reported that the sign had been stolen from the camp. 5 men had gone to the camp and taken the sign from there in 3 pieces, cutting it and then sneaking it away. After a long search, the Polish Police found the sign in the back garden of one of the thief's houses, after he back put it up there on display. The men were arrested and the article that told this story explains the the Holocaust memorial charity called this crime "an attack on the remembrance of the Holocaust" (The Guardian, 21/12/09, https://goo.gl/FUfmjX). The men were aged between 25-34 years old so this wasn't really teenagers but still young people involved. This as well was for a sign that all the prisoner would see as they entered the camp and for so many prisoner, it was the last thing they saw before the Gas Chambers. Students Steal from Auschwitz - 2015
In 2015, a British Secondary School had traveled to Poland to visit the Historic Camp 'Auschwitz' as part of a History Trip. 2 School students (17 years of age and both male) decided to steal a few little "bits of junk" as souvenirs from the camp and to remember the trip by. They stole; two pieces of broken glass, spoons, clothes buttons and a comb. These were very small items and the boys had no idea the issue it would cause. The museum discovered this and the boys were arrested until they apologised and gave back the items. It was explained in the article I read that "The boys, neither of whom is yet 18, picked up the fragments in the Canada section of the camp. They cooperated fully with the authorities and admitted taking the items. They are deeply sorry for the offence they have caused.” (The Guardian, 23/6/15, https://goo.gl/I3z2LK). This was said by a spokesman of the School which the boys attended. Straight away this jumps out and makes me question, how can you not assume people would take offence from this? Auschwitz was one of the biggest camps in the Nazi's hands and killed 1.5 Million out of the 6 Million Jews that were Murdered in the Holocaust. But they simply thought that it was just a little souvenir to remember the trip. Although no harm came to the boys and all was forgiven, it does beg the question are we beginning to think it's okay to take items from a place where 1.5 Million people were murdered? Or we could put it in a simpler way, would the boys have stolen off a Grave? I think not but this place is a grave.
Shoes stolen from Concentration Camp - 2014
In Poland there is another Death camp called 'Majdanek', Here, the museum has converted on of the barracks which was originally for slave labour during the War and it is now where the museum display all of the shoes that were owned by the prisoners of the camp and the victims of the gas chambers. This is all that is in the Barrack (Barrack 52), but in 2014 it was reported that someone had cut into the metal display case and stole 6 pairs of adult shoes and 2 pairs of children's shoes. In Barrack 52 there are over 56,000 shoes are displayed for the public to come and see. This is to show the seriousness of the Holocaust and how many people were murdered at this camp. The article the BBC put out also explained that "Previous items stolen from the museum include victim's ashes and a cap from a prisoner." (BBC News, 25/11/14, https://goo.gl/r3OBEc) Which shows that this is still a serious issue. But none of these items were ever recovered or found again. Another article about this story said "Museums on the sites of Nazi camps now issue frequent complaints of numerous acts of vandalism and theft" (The Telegraph, 26/11/14, https://goo.gl/NrRi65) None of the stories mention anything about age, as the thief's were never identified in the articles. However, I can make the assumption that they would most likely be younger than older as the younger generation these days don't really have any connections to the war. As many of the survivors may not have big families or may have past away. So now anyone who's a teenager would have had great-grand parents in the War.The Yolocaust - 2016
There is a Holocaust Memorial based in Berlin. In 2016, many 'selfies' of people at the memorial were uploaded, a lot of the people in them being disrespectful by jumping on the memorial or being disrespectful. One of the photos that stood out was this:
This was uploaded to Twitter with the caption "Jumping on dead Jews @ Holocaust Memorial" which doesn't need any justification as to why that's disrespectful. Jewish Artist Shahak Shapira, saw this and was outranged. Shahak has had many family issues such as his little Brother being attacked when he was 10 simply because he was Jewish. From this, Shahak set up a page called 'Yolocaust' and photoshopped these people into photos from the Holocaust to show what sort of thing they're actually doing in the photos. 
This was the latest issue with disrespecting the Holocaust and it seriously helped to stop. But, it didn't completely stop this. When I did a quick hashtag search on Instagram with "#holocaustmemorial" and found the following photos:
So, although we aren't having people uploading very disrespectful photos. People are still climbing on the memorial and taking this photos and this is still disrespectful. This is still a big issue with today's society because taking selfies has become huge. They're everywhere on Instagram and social media websites.
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