Teen 'Shoah party' WhatsApp chat of horrors uncovered in Italy
Child pornography, including a video of an adult abusing a baby-girl, racist and antisemitic slurs, swastikas, and ISIS propaganda were shared in the group.
By ROSSELLA TERCATINNazi Swastika(photo credit: REUTERS)
A WhatsApp group named “The Shoah party” featuring dozens of teen members was uncovered by Italian authorities, Italian media reported on Thursday. Child pornography, including a video of an adult abusing a baby girl and a three-some between 10-year-olds, racist and antisemitic slurs, swastikas, ISIS propaganda videos, praises to Hitler, Mussolini and Osama Bin Laden were shared in the group. “Jews are just fuel. Where is the lighter?” read one of such messages, according to the Italian daily La Stampa. Users could join the group when invited through a link or via Instagram. Its existence was discovered by chance by a mother who chanced upon it while checking her 13-year-old’s smartphone.
“I felt like the world had collapsed on my head,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity. She explained that her son was permitted to have his own phone provided that she would have the passcode and monitor it routinely, “because a phone in a minor’s hands can become a weapon.” When she opened the device one April afternoon, her attention was immediately captured by the name of the group “The Shoah party.” “It was all about violence, abuse, physical and psychological domination of 'others', whether this meant Jews, sick people or children,” she said. After realizing that the chat included two classmates of her son, the woman got in touch with their mothers, but, after they brushed her off, she decided to go to the police. “My son is not a suspect in the investigation, but only a witness. Even if this weren’t the case though, I wouldn’t have stopped, not only because reporting it to the authorities was a civic duty, but also because we cannot accept that young teens spread obscenities in the name of Hitler or the Jihad,” she further told La Stampa. Her son explained to her that he accepted the invitation to join the group because the messages inviting him were stalling his phone and interfering with his abilities to play video games on it, and after briefly checking out the group, he never looked at what was shared again. According to Italian media, while around 300 people became part of the group at some point and then left it, there are currently 26 people under investigation, mostly minors. The four chat administrators are under 14 years old and cannot, therefore, be prosecuted under criminal law in Italy.