Local law enforcement arrested Jenna Kandeel, 23, a student at the University of Delaware, after she damaged flags on May 8 as part of a Holocaust memorial set up and organized by a Jewish group at the University of Delaware in Newark, Del.
“We set up a bunch of flags on the green to help remember and memorialize all the people that died in [a] four-year span,” said Spencer Kufeld, a university student, on Fox 29 Philadelphia. “It’s a very sacred thing to a lot of people on campus and around the world.”
According to witnesses, Kandeel made derogatory statements about Jews and the Holocaust, as well as vandalized and spit on the flags. She would later confess her actions to police after being taken into custody.
She faces three misdemeanor charges of hate crime, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct. She has also been banned from campus.
“The Holocaust is not ancient history: 80 years later, the world’s Jewish population still has not recovered; its survivors are still with us; and I fear that we still have not learned its lessons,” said Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings. “Seeing this ignorance on display, particularly in an increasingly antisemitic climate, should be a wake-up call.”
