Nazi protesters picket Anne Frank play in Michigan, call concentration camp victim 'whore'

Nov. 11 (UPI) - A handful of demonstrators carrying Nazi flags protested outside of a play presentation of The Diary of Anne Frank at an American Legion Hall in Howell, Mich., on Saturday post officials and sheriff's deputies said.

The play, which tells the true story of a young Jewish girl during Nazi occupation in Europe before her murder in a concetration camp, was sold out where it was put on at the American Legion Devereaux Post 141. Post Commander Bobby Brite said about 10 people took part in the protest, all wearing masks while carrying the flags.

"They are some of the most cowardly people I've ever met," Brite, an Army veteran, told the Detroit News , calling the demonstration "absolutely disgusting."

The protesters never made it inside the hall. Instead, they stood in the parking lot until the Livingston County Sheriff's Office showed up. Once they were asked to leave, they started their protest again across the street from the hall.

The demonstrators at one point started chanting, "Anne Frank was a whore." In 1945, she died at 15 at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

The demonstration comes as anti-Semitic incidents throughout the country have been on the increase since the Israel- Gaza war. There was no indication media report, however, that Saturday's protest was connected to the war.