A German teenager has been praised for standing up to neo-Nazis at her school.
The non-Jewish 15-year-old was awarded the prize for Civic Courage against Right-wing Radicalism, Antisemitism and Racism.
The Jewish community of Berlin and the Association for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, gave the prize to the girl, known as Emilia S., on Tuesday.
Emilia was awarded for standing up to a trend in her school in Dresden, whereby classmates had started giving each other points for repeating neo-Nazi slogans.
Her peers were shouting out the slogans when their mobile phones were charged up to 88 per cent.
The number 88 stands for “Heil Hitler,” in far right circles.
Students playing the game would shout out “Heilung,” which means, “to your health,” if someone sneezed.
They would be rewarded points for saying “Heil Hitler” or doing the Hitler greeting, both of which are illegal in Germany.
Instead of taking part, Emilia told the police about the trend and filed charges against her classmate for incitement to hate.
She said that she was scared to report the boy in question at first but changed her mind when he started to share antisemitic images online.
She said: ““The most horrible one was a picture of smoke with the caption ‘Jewish family photo.’ I reacted and said they should cut out the Nazi stuff.”
She was teased for speaking out by her classmate, who sent texts to her peers saying she “wanted to immigrate to Poland” and “inhaled too many dead Jews.”
Emilia was awarded prize money of 2,000 euros, and said she plans to share it with a 14-year-old Jewish boy in Berlin whose family moved him to another school after he was bullied by classmates.
