A staff member at a Washington DC elementary school has been suspended after making third-grade students reenact scenes from the Holocaust during a library lesson on Friday, The Washington Post report
The principal at Watkins Elementary School told parents in a letter that “students being asked to portray participants from the Holocaust like Adolf Hitler, digging ditches to serve as mass graves, and simulated shootings. It was also alleged that the staff member leading the lesson also made anti-Semitic statements.”
“There was a lot of sobbing and crying and distress and then momentarily we got an email to say that the children had reenacted the Holocaust,” one parent told the Fox5DC. “This included the trains, dying in gas chambers, playing Hitler and mass graves.”
According to the Post, one Jewish child who was told to play the role of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was directed to pretend to commit suicide at the end of the exercise. Another student was told to pretend that she was on a train to a concentration camp.
One parent told the Post that when the children asked the staff member why the Germans did this, the staff member said it was “because the Jews ruined Christmas.”
The children are still traumatized after being told to pretend to choke and die in a gas chamber and watching students simulate digging their own graves, another parent said.
“They are traumatized. One parent said that their child was worried the teacher in question was hiding at their house. Children are having nightmares and generally having a very hard time,” she said adding that the Jewish child who ordered to play Hitler in the exercise is “not doing well at all.”
The school district said in a statement that, “this was not an approved lesson plan, and we sincerely apologize to our students and families who were subjected to this incident.”
The staff member has been placed on leave, pending an investigation.
