Polish Court Jails Men Accused Of Stripping Naked, Killing Lamb At Auschwitz

A Polish court located in Oswiecim has reportedly jailed two organizers accused of dishonoring a memorial site by removing their clothes and killing an animal.

The court handed down jail sentences to protestors identified as Adam B. and Mikita V. Wednesday for desecrating a memorial site during an anti-war rally at the former German Nazi concentration and execution camp Auschwitz-Birkenau last year.

A group of 12 people stripped naked in protest, while one of the suspects slaughtered a lamb on the premises. The two are expected to serve a year and a half and 14 months in jail, The Times of Israel reported. The 10 other protestors received community service and fines of up to $3,000.

"Auschwitz is a memorial site, a symbol of martyrdom and a cemetery for thousands of human beings," said prosecutor Mariusz Slomka. "We must send a clear signal that these kinds of stunts should never be repeated."

The incident caused an uproar as the former German concentration camp serves as a memorial to those who died at the Holocaust site.

"These people desecrated one of the most tragic places in the world by shamelessly trying to use it to propagate vague ideas that never really were explained and injuring the millions of people whose loved ones died there," museum director Piotr Cywinski said, according to Polish news agency PAP.

Auschwitz was one of the biggest Nazi concentration camps in Germany. Over 1.1 million people died at the site. There were more than 40 "sub-camps" in Auschwitz that held prisoners for slave labor.

Meanwhile, the group claimed that the stunt was necessary. They called the lamb killing a "symbol of an innocent being who suffers for nothing."

"The court punished us for a work of art, it’s unfair," Mikita V. said.