A small group of masked people waving the Nazi flag shouted antisemitic and racist slurs,shocking the audience inside.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
A small group of neo-Nazis demonstrated outside a performance of the “Diary of Anne Frank” in Michigan Saturday, shocking the audience inside.
Five people wearing white supremacist symbols yelled racist and antisemitic slurs while waving Nazi flags in the parking lot of the venue, the city of Howell’s American Legion Post 141.
Police officers were called to the “disturbance,” as they called it, and told the demonstrators to leave.
They went across the street to continue their vilifications, including shouts of “Heil Hitler.”
At one point, one person approached the group and an argument began, but no one was hurt, the county sheriff’s department said.
The cast were told about the incident during the first act and reassured that it was under control, the Fowlerville Community Theater group putting on the play said.
The moment made the subject of their artistic endeavor “feel much more real than we’d expected,” the group noted in a statement afterwards.
“The presence of protesters outside gave us a small glimpse of the fear and uncertainty felt by those in hiding” from their Nazi hunters during the Holocaust, they continued.
“We hope that by presenting Anne’s story we can help prevent the atrocities of the past from happening again,” they added pointedly.
The audience was informed at the intermission, and they were “shocked and appalled,” attendee Bobby Brite told ABC affiliate WXYZ.
“We had 75 people downstairs that watched that play, and out of that 75, there were 50 or 60 of them that were afraid to leave this building,” the 26-year Army vet added. “We had to escort them to their cars. Nobody in America should feel like that.”
Brite filmed the masked demonstrators and uploaded the video to social media.
In commenting on the sight, he upheld their right to protest while saying this “was the kind of crap you have to put up with,” labeling them as a hate group that should be passed by and “ignored” if seen again.
The local branch of the Anti-Defamation League said in a post on X that it was “disgusted by the far-right extremists who praised Hitler and waved Nazi flags” outside the performance.
Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, a Jewish Democrat who just won her race to represent Michigan in the Senate, was appalled by the report.
“Now more than ever, it’s vital to push back against hatred, especially on the local level,” she posted to X. “To the American Legion for offering their venue for a performance about Anne Frank: Thank you deeply. To the few masked, Nazi-flag-waving haters: Nazis always lose.”
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