JTA – Police and school authorities are investigating an incident in which Toronto High School students gave Hitler a salute to a teacher who is the daughter of Holocaust survivors.
The incident is the third such display of Nazi symbols in high schools in North York, Toronto, in recent weeks.
“One of our teachers, a French teacher, a Jewish teacher, left the room,” Shari Schwartz-Maltz, a spokeswoman for the Toronto School Board, told local City News on Tuesday. “When she returned to the room, several students surrounded her and gave her a salute to Heil Hitler. This particular incident was very hateful, very painful, very sad for a teacher who happens to be a Jew, and she just allowed me to share with you that she is also the child of Holocaust survivors. So that’s what beats her heart. “
Schwartz-Maltz, who heads the school’s Jewish Heritage Committee, said there would be “consequences” for the children involved and that Holocaust education would be expanded. “It follows from the top that we are committed to actively bringing more Holocaust education to our high school schools,” she said.
City News quoted Schwartz-Maltz as saying police were investigating but would not add details. It says the teacher taught 8th grade at Valley Park High School, which is called Canada’s largest high school.
Schwartz-Maltz confirmed reports earlier this month that students at another high school in North York, Charles H. Best, had built a swastika in a classroom in one incident and greeted a Jewish student in another in a greeting to Hitler.
Following the latest incident, the Simon Wiesenthal Friends Center, a Canadian branch of the Jewish Human Rights Group in Los Angeles, called on the school board for “emergency intervention.”
“Obviously something has been broken in Toronto’s public school system and needs immediate attention,” the City News group said.