Community Corner
Yorkville Trump Supporter Explains Nazi Salute at Canceled Rally
The 69-year-old woman said she was trying to teach protesters the meaning behind the salute.
Yorkville woman who made this gesture, causing an Internet stir, explains what led to it https://t.co/C9FF8YZIjK pic.twitter.com/JvnxbjOEjR
A Yorkville woman who was photographed giving a “Heil Hitler” salute has explained to the Chicago Tribune what led to her actions.
Birgitt Peterson, 69, told the Tribune she made the salute in response to protesters at Friday night's canceled Trump speech who were making the gesture toward her.
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Peterson’s husband, Donald, told the Tribune "We're not skinheads, we're not Nazis."
The Chicago Tribune tweeted the image, which was shared widely on Twitter.
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Peterson said she left the rally at the UIC Pavilion after it was canceled and went outside to smoke a cigarette. She found herself, clad in a Trump t-shirt, surrounded by protesters and was called a white supremacist.
Protesters reportedly told Peterson she was here to vote for Hitler and began giving the Nazi salute. Peterson, who grew up in West Berlin and has been a U.S. citizen since 1982, according to the Tribune, asked the protesters if they knew what that salute meant.
“They said Trump is a second Hitler,” Birgitt Peterson told The New York Times. “I said do you know what that sign stands for? Do you know who Hitler really was? I make the point that they are demonstrating something they had no knowledge about. If you want to do it right, you do it right. You don’t know what you are doing.”
That's when she made the salute.
Having grown up in postwar Germany, Donald Peterson said, his wife knows Hitler’s impact.
"It really makes her mad that they compare somebody (like Trump) to Hitler without knowing history," Donald Peterson told the Tribune. "That is an insult to anybody who lived through it."
Donald Peterson told the Chicago Sun-Times he's not even a Trump supporter. He prefers Ted Cruz but went to the rally because he believes Trump will be the eventual Republican nominee for president and he wanted to hear him in person.
The Petersons said their phone has been ringing all weekend, mostly with insults.
more via the Chicago Tribune, New York Times and Sun-Times
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