Man who yelled 'Heil Hitler' during Fiddler on the Roof says he's sorry and it 'came out wrong'

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The man who shouted "Heil Hitler! Heil Trump!" from the balcony of a Baltimore Fiddler on the Roof performance has said he's sorry for his outburst, which he believes "came out wrong." He did not explain how yelling about Hitler during a play about Jewish people could ever not "come out wrong."

"I opened my mouth and it was so wrong. I know that now," said the shouter, identified as one Anthony M. Derlunas. "I don't know what I was thinking. I'm so ashamed."

Derlunas claims he is actually opposed to President Trump — "The thing that I can't stand is Trump spreading hatred, and what did I do? I spread hatred" — but that the story reminded him of the administration's immigration policies. Fiddler ends with the Jewish community in a Russian town being forced by the tsarist government to abandon their homes and emigrate abroad; several of the main characters decide they will join family who have already moved to the United States.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.