She forced third-grade students to act out scenes from the Holocaust. For this, a primary school teacher in the USA was suspended. The principal of Watkins Elementary School in Washington, DC, said in an email to the parents, as reported by the Washington Post.
The teacher is said to have got the children to re-enact the digging of mass graves, the gas chambers and the train to the concentration camps. One child even had to play Adolf Hitler and commit suicide at the end of the lesson – later it turned out that the child was of Jewish origin.
The headmaster apologized for the teacher’s behavior in the email. “Children should never be forced to act out atrocities like genocide, war or murder.” The children also had to pretend to shoot their classmates.
Children should be silent
During the whole action, the teacher is said to have constantly dropped anti-Semitic remarks, another parent reported to the Washington Post. When the children asked why the Germans did that, the teacher said because the Jews had ruined Christmas.
After the lesson, the teacher asked the children not to tell anyone what had happened. But the children were disturbed and did not obey the request. And so in the end the headmaster was notified and the teacher was on leave until the school initiated an investigation.
The entire class met with the school’s mental health team after the incident, the school management email said. “This lesson was not an approved lesson and we sincerely apologize to everyone who has been exposed to this incident.” (chs)