NSWJBD CEO invites nazi flag pranksters to visit the Sydney Jewish Museum
A prank spawned by students at one of Sydney’s elite boys’ school involved the unfurling of a nazi flag and saluting it in the Nazi style, photographing the scene with the Deputy Principal.
The Daily Telegraph reported the incident on the weekend even though it happened at the end of the 2016 school year.
image: ADC
The Shore School’s headmaster Dr Timothy Wright launched an investigation and has written a letter of apology to the school’s parents following being alerted to the incident by The Daily Telegraph.
The Telegraph reports that the students had been studying the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany in their final year and claims that Deputy Headmaster Rod Morrison was duped into posing in for a photograph before the Nazi flag was unfurled. The paper goes on to say that Mr Morrison made it clear to the students that their actions had been inappropriate.
In his letter to the parents Dr Wright wrote that Mr Morrison had asked the students to delete the photograph and that he had disposed of the flag. The Telegraph reported that in his letter the photograph was “extremely insensitive and incredibly foolish”.
Vic Alhadeff
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff commented: “There are 50,000 students who are also caught up in ‘the euphoria of the end of school’ who have not chosen to pose in front of a Nazi flag. It is very unfortunate that we increasingly see the trivialisation of Nazi symbols and the atrocities that lay behind them.
Year 12 students should know better. We invite these students to undertake a guided tour of the Sydney Jewish Museum by Holocaust survivors so that they can see first-hand the horrors they were making light of.”
Dvir Abramovich – ADC
Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of the ADC, issued the following statement: “This inexcusable and hurtful incident will certainly shock the conscience of all good people. While we appreciate the school’s apology, disturbing and offensive acts such as these, by young adults who may be future leaders in the community, should not be taken lightly or dismissed as a prank.
There is nothing funny, silly or playful about the brutal extermination of six million Jews and millions of others, and one wonders what motivated those young people to choose the universal symbol of hatred. We hope that school administrators seriously address the causes for this behaviour and take concrete actions to explain to the school body the odious and dangerous message conveyed in the display of the Nazi flag and the giving of the Heil Hitler.
It is hard to express or to calculate the pain inflicted on Holocaust survivors and their families who may become aware of this deeply saddening episode. It is a timely reminder about the staggering lack of historical understanding about the evils of Hitler’s regime prevalent amongst teenagers, as well as the trivialisation of Nazis and antisemitism that often takes place in public discourse. At a time of a surge in antisemitism and bigotry, this incident clearly underscores the critical and urgent need for Holocaust education to be introduced in schools across the nation so students can learn its lessons and become ambassadors for our country’s core values and combat all forms of intolerance and racism.”
SHORE History students should have a visit to the Jewish Museum a compulsory part of their course.