Omaha middle school apologizes for Hitler ‘quote of the day’
Nebraska’s Westside Middle School says it believes there was no malicious intent behind staff member posting Nazi leader’s adage on the value of history in 8th grade hallway
Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
A middle school in Omaha, Nebraska, has apologized to students and families after a quotation from Nazi Germany leader Adolf Hitler was displayed in a school hallway as the “quote of the day,” the Omaha World Herald reported Tuesday.
A staff member had written the adage, “The man who has no sense of history is like a man with no ears or eyes” on a board that was set up in an eighth grade hallway on Monday.
Later that evening the school sent a message out to staff, students, and their families saying it was “extremely sorry,” the Herald reported.
The email, signed by Westside Middle School principal Kim Eymann and superintendent Mike Lucas, admitted, “We made a mistake today at WMS.”
Quote of the day from Westside Middle School. From Adolf Hitler https://t.co/nGNHwyxCfr
— Itzabiggn (@jrg8074) February 3, 2021
The school apologized for “the insensitivity this showed to our Jewish population and to other students.”
It said the school would be taking steps including teaching students that Hitler should not be quoted without context.
“This is not indicative of the culture we are trying to set,” the email concluded. “We are extremely sorry that this occurred.”
Brandi Paul, a spokeswoman for Westside Community Schools, told the Herald there was no reason to believe there was any malicious intent behind the incident, “but malicious intent or not, it was something that needed to be addressed.”
She did not provide any details of the staff member who was responsible for displaying the quote but said action was being taken.
“We’re going to move forward and try to learn what we can from this,” she said.
School officials were planning to meet with the Anti-Defamation League as a follow-up to talks held last year to promote inclusivity, diversity and acceptance, Paul said, according to the report.
