Tennessee Middle School Yearbook Shows Students Dressed As Nazis
Middle school students in Germantown, Tennessee dressed up as Nazis for a school project. Image by facebook
By Aiden Pink May 3, 2017
A Tennessee school district is investigating how a picture of two students dressed up as Nazis ended up in a school yearbook.
The yearbook at Houston Middle School in Germantown, outside Memphis, showed two students wearing Hitler-type mustaches and hats with swastikas as part of a class called “Facing History and Ourselves” that covers the Holocaust. But the yearbook does not provide any context for the picture, leading to confusion from parents.
“I am horrified that children at HMS were dressed as Nazis and Hitler and doubly horrified it was chosen for the yearbook,” one parent wrote on Facebook.
“We apologize that the yearbook picture may have offended anyone or has caused misunderstanding of our intent,” school principal Liz Diaz wrote in a statement. “As a matter of fact, this class and our annual Days of Diversity event are in place to help teach our students the importance and appreciation of our diverse world. Houston Middle celebrates diversity.”
The designers of the Facing History and Ourselves curriculum discourage teachers from having students role play the Holocaust, local TV station WMC reported.
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter at @aidenpink.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
