'I felt sick to my stomach': Woman confronts couple wearing swastika armbands who gave a Nazi salute at a holocaust memorial in Rhode Island Sondra Pierson witnessed a couple wearing swastika armbands with one wearing a 'MAGA' hat outside a restaurant She followed them to the Rhode Island Holocaust memorial where she saw them laughing as they gave a Nazi salute Pierson said she felt compelled to confront them as she felt 'sick' and angry The woman then asked her if she was Jewish after she voiced her outrage By Leah Mcdonald For Dailymail.com Published: 17:24 BST, 20 April 2019 | Updated: 17:26 BST, 20 April 2019 Viewcomments A woman confronted a couple wearing swastika armbands who allegedly gave a Nazi salute near a Holocaust memorial in Rhode Island. Sondra Pierson, 47, a bookkeeper from Rhode Island, was dining at the Parkside Rotisserie & Bar in Providence on April 11 when a couple across the street caught her attention for all the wrong reasons. The man was wearing a 'MAGA' hat and had a red armband with a black swastika on it. The woman wore a matching armband and a swastika T-shirt. A woman confronted a couple wearing swastika armbands who allegedly gave a Nazi salute near a Holocaust memorial in Rhode Island. She first saw them outside a restaurant where she was dining and took a picture of them The pair crossed the street to the Holocaust Memorial, leaned on the various statues, took pictures and laughed, Pierson told the Providence Journal. 'I confronted them,' said Pierson, who left the restaurant and walked over to the memorial. She said she told them: 'What the hell do you think you’re doing?. How dare you do this?'. The woman, she explained, sarcastically replied: 'Thank you so much, I so appreciate your input...let me guess — you’re Jewish?.' Teenagers who were skateboarding overheard and filmed the couple. 'The woman dared them to put the videos on YouTube,' Pierson claimed. 'Then they went to the World War II Memorial.' Pierson claimed she was horrified by the encounter and that the man had swastikas tattooed where his eyebrows should be. Pierson’s account was corroborated by another witness at the restaurant. She told Yahoo Lifestyle: 'I said, "am I actually seeing this?"'. The couple went to the Rhode Island Holocaust Memorial and gave a Nazi salute 'I literally felt sick to my stomach. I started shaking. Everybody at the bar was just really disturbed. 'People around me said the same thing. I took their photo almost to convince myself it was happening. 'I don’t like confrontation but when you see something so reprehensible, you have to stand up. It’s not brave, just a natural reaction.' Pierson claimed she made two 911 calls and read the license plate number of the couple’s white Cadillac to the operator. 'Two police cars drove by but they didn’t stop,' she explained. Steven Brown, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, wrote in an email to the Providence Journal. Pierson was at the the Parkside Rotisserie & Bar in Providence when she saw the pair outside 'It’s perfectly despicable and shameful, but also perfectly lawful. I certainly think that the Jewish community feels that surge in hostility,' he said. 'It’s a sense that heinous actions and ideas are coming into the light, and are very much designed to cause fear and harassment.' According to the Anti-Defamation League, reports of anti-Semitic crimes are on the rise, with a 58% rise reported between 2016 and 2017. The rise was due, in part, because of an increase on school and college campuses, according to the organization. In 2017, a group of far-right activists caused outrage when they marched through Charlottesville with tiki torches chanting Nazi slogans such as 'blood and soil' and 'Jews will not replace us.' Then, in October last year, a gunman broke into the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and shot 11 worshipers dead in what has been described as an anti-Semitic attack. Read more: Share or comment on this article: All rights reserved for this news site dailymail and under his responsibility