Wellington  - Students at New Zealand's Lincoln University dressed as Nazi officers and concentration camp inmates at an early Oktoberfest party, a newspaper reported on Monday.

Some wore Nazi apparel bearing the words "Sieg Heil!" and one had a white top emblazoned with swastikas, a student, who requested anonymity, told The Press, Christchurch.

He said partygoers saluted Hitler, made light of the Holocaust and shared "tasteless jokes about one of the darkest periods of human history."

Vice-chancellor Roger Field said the university was investigating Friday's party. "If some of the claims that have been made are correct, then I think some of the behaviour seems to be quite unacceptable," he told the paper.

"We have an expectation about student behaviour, and that's pretty clearly stated."

Stephen Goodman, president of the New Zealand Jewish Council, said cases of the Holocaust being trivialized were disappointing. "It is not the first time and I doubt it will be the last either.

"In most of the cases we've found in New Zealand, it's generally through a degree of ignorance that this sort of behaviour eventuates. It is not through malicious intent." (dpa)