Masked protesters with Nazi flags march outside Anne Frank play in Michigan

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By Brad Brooks

(Reuters) – A small group of masked protesters waving Nazi flags and wearing white supremacist symbols on their clothing marched outside a Michigan theater during a performance of “The Diary of Anne Frank” over the weekend.

A local ABC affiliate obtained video of the small group outside the American Legion post in Howell, Michigan, where the incident took place on Saturday. The Fowlerville Community Theater troupe, which staged the play about a Jewish girl who kept a diary while hiding from the German occupation of Amsterdam during World War Two, confirmed the incident.

The Livingston County Sheriff’s Office, whose deputies responded to the incident, did not return calls seeking details. The Howell Police Department said the incident took place outside of their jurisdiction and that they had no comment. Calls to the Howell mayor’s office were not answered.

The theater group said in a statement that it became aware of the Nazi protesters during the first act of the play and were told the situation was under control and that the protesters had been moved off the property. The group informed the audience of the situation at intermission.

The theater group said that they endeavored to tell the story of “real people who lost their lives in the Holocaust.”

“The presence of protesters outside gave us a small glimpse of the fear and uncertainty felt by those in hiding” from Nazis during World War Two, the group said.

Bobby Brite, a former commander of the American Legion post in Howell, about 55 miles (90 km) northwest of Detroit, recorded the video of the protest. “People were shocked. They were appalled,” he told ABC affiliate WXYZ TV.

“We had 75 people downstairs that watched that play and out of that 75, there were 50 or 60 of them that were afraid to leave this building,” Brite told WXYZ TV. “We had to escort them to their cars. No one in America should feel like that.”

WXYZ reported that there were no physical confrontations as a result of the Nazi protest, but that some of the veterans who were members of the American Legion post exchanged words with the protesters.

In July, about a dozen protesters waving Nazi flags marched through Howell, chanting “Heil Hitler,” according to the Livingston Daily newspaper.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)