Minnesota schools to boost Holocaust studies after students’ Nazi-themed post
Pupils who posed making Nazi salute while holding a poster saying ‘Be Mein? Yes or Nein’ will be disciplined, authorities say
JTA — The superintendent of a US school district in Minnesota has said that the posting of a photo on social media showing two students doing a Nazi salute will lead to more studies about Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust.
The photo posted late last week on a private Instagram account but circulated on social media showed two high school students doing a Nazi salute and holding a sign with references to Hitler and Nazi Germany. The sign was an invitation to the Minnetonka High School’s annual Valentine’s Day dance, called Sweethearts, the Star Tribune reported Friday.
“Sweethearts would be a Hit(ler) w/you, and I could Nazi myself going w/anybody else. Be Mein? Yes or Nein,” said the sign.
Superintendent Dennis Peterson said in an email to district parents on Friday, a day after the photo was made public, that the students would be disciplined.
Not sure why every news outlet is masking the faces of the Minnetonka High School kids throwing the #SiegHeil #NaziSalute Here are the budding antisemitic neo-Nazi #ProudBoys. Maybe they should move to Baraboo Wisconsin. pic.twitter.com/WYFbvyau7L
— Nikki sit down (@CarlsonNikki) January 18, 2019
“The larger issue is that we, as a community, must do an even better job of educating students about Hitler and the Holocaust,” he wrote. “While we do units on this in middle school, and we have had several Holocaust survivors speak at MHS, it has apparently not been enough to prevent yesterday’s incident.”
Rabbi Tzvi Kupfer, adviser to the school’s Jewish Student Union, told the newspaper that some of his students said they no longer feel safe going to school.
On Friday, the female student issued an apology on a new, private Instagram page, according to the newspaper.
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