New York deliveryman awarded $900,000 after 16 years of anti-Semitic harassment

Restaurant manager would pass gas in front of deliveryman, joking that it was Zyklon B used to gas Jews during the Holocaust.

By JTA
Lower Manhattan skyline 390 (photo credit: REUTERS/Gary Hershorn)
Lower Manhattan skyline 390
(photo credit: REUTERS/Gary Hershorn)
A New York restaurant deliveryman was awarded a $900,000 jury verdict for enduring 16 years of anti-Semitic harassment by three supervisors.
The jury in Brooklyn federal court reached a verdict in favor of Adam Wiercinski on Oct. 24 in four hours, the New York Post reported Monday.
One manager at the Mangia 57 restaurant in Manhattan would pass gas in front of Wiercinski and then joke that it was Zyklon B, used in the Nazi gas chambers during the Holocaust, the Post reported citing the lawsuit.
Much of Wiercinski’s father’s family died at the hands of the Nazis, he told the newspaper. He said he had to explain what Zyklon B was to the jury, because they were “very young.”
“When I explain how it was used in the gas chambers, they were very serious. Everybody [in the courtroom] was silent,” he told the Post.
Supervisors also called him a “dirty Jew” and threw pennies at him while making anti-Semitic comments; they also docked his tips.
Wiercinski did not quit because he felt he was too old to get a new job, his attorney, Matthew Blit, told the newspaper.