According to a Jewish rights group, 16 Hadid men were detained without charge for more than 10 hours at a German airport, including a group traveling from New York to Vienna.
The five were first intercepted by authorities in Frankfurt on March 7 and detained without food and water, while the other Hasidim were “rounded up” and held together, the former state assembly’s founder Dovis Hickind, the founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, said in a release Tuesday. .
The release said some members of the group were pulled over and “rigorously questioned”.
Hikind said in a statement, “This is something that is inappropriate to happen to innocent people, but even more so to identifiable Jews everywhere in Germany.”
“They reached out to share their story with me,” he said. “I can tell you that the trauma and pain they are experiencing is frightening and painful, so we are asking the German government to immediately investigate this horrific treatment of innocent people.”
According to Interview with men Continued by the group, the problems began when five New Yorkers were stopped at border control at Frankfurt Airport.
“As I hand over my papers to the officer, he looks at me, he tells me, ‘Are you all five together?” “And I said, ‘Yes.’ And they said, ‘You need to move away.’
“Two more people who are on our flight get there,” he said. “They left with their papers and were immediately asked to stand next to us. Therefore, we immediately saw that it was a Jewish thing.
“No one (and) was stopped for more than a minute,” he said. “Looked at the document, ‘Next.’ Seven Jews, Hasidic Jews, were asked to stand apart. “
According to the men, they reached outside the US consulate during the event and were told that “they are checking my paperwork, that they may be committing fraud.”
Officials at the US Consulate in Frankfurt and the US Embassy in Berlin did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on Tuesday.
The 16 detainees were eventually allowed to proceed to Vienna, but only after incorrectly stating the signatories had cleared the German authorities, the men said.
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