New York Hasidic men detained in German airport – was there any reason?

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New York Hasidic men detained in German airport – was there any reason?

March 17th, 2021

Awake Goy

About 16 Hasidic men, including a group from New York traveling to Vienna, were detained at a German airport for more than 10 hours without actually getting charged, according to the Jewish rights group Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA), the New York Post reported.

Five of the men were apprehended by authorities Frankfurt already on March 7, and were detained without food and water. According to a press release, other Hasidim were also held at the airport, founder of AAA, former state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, announced Tuesday, adding that some members of the group were pulled away and “harshly interrogated.”

“It’s unconscionable for something like this to happen to innocent people anywhere, but even more so to identifiable Jews in Germany, of all places,” Hikind said in the statement.

“They reached out to share their story with me,” he added. “I can tell you the trauma and pain they suffered is scarring and traumatic, so we are calling on the German government to investigate this appalling treatment of [these] innocent people immediately.”

The Post reported that, according to interviews with the men released by the Jewish group, the problems began when the five New-Yorkers were stopped at border control at the Frankfurt airport.

“As soon as I gave my papers over to the officer, he looks at me, he says to me, ‘Are you all five together?’” one of the detained men said. “And I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘You need to step aside.’”

“Two more people who are on our flight arrive there,” he said. “They went over with their papers and immediately were told to stand next to us as well. So, we immediately saw that this is a Jewish thing.

“Nobody [else] was stopped for more than a minute,” he said. “Looked at the document, ‘Next.’ Seven Jews, Hasidic Jews, were told to stand aside.”

According to the men, they reached out to the US Consulate while being held and were told that “they’re investigating my paperwork, that they might be fraudulent.”

The 16 detainees were eventually allowed to proceed to Vienna, but only after being told to sign disclaimers clearing the German authorities of any wrongdoing, the detained men said.

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