Holocaust survivor meets with California teens involved in Nazi salute photos

[webfact]

Holocaust survivor meets with California teens involved in Nazi salute photos

By Steve Gorman

 

Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, stepsister of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank, talks to the media at Newport Harbor High School after speaking with a group of students seen in viral online photos giving Nazi salutes over a swastika made of red cups that sparked outrage in Newport Beach, California, U.S., March 7, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake

 

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (Reuters) - An Auschwitz survivor and stepsister of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank met on Thursday with some of the California high school students who posed in social media photos giving Nazi salutes over a swastika made of red cups used in a drinking game.

 

The anti-Semitic images, one with the caption "master race" - a reference to the Nazi belief in ethnic purity - went viral after being posted to Snapchat on Saturday, fueling concerns about a recent surge in incidents of hate speech in public schools nationwide.

 

Holocaust survivor and peace activist Eva Schloss, 89, visited privately for more than hour at Newport Harbor High School with about 10 of the teens involved, along with their parents, student leaders, faculty members and a local rabbi who helped organize the meeting.

 

Speaking to reporters afterward, Schloss said the students "told me it was a joke," and she was surprised that they professed not to have fully understood the meaning and consequences of their behavior.

 

"It shows that education is really, really very inadequate," she said, adding that the students and their parents, nevertheless, were sincerely apologetic.

 

"I was 16 when I came out of Auschwitz," Schloss said she told the students. "I was their age when I realized my whole life was shattered."

 

The photos were taken at a party at a home in Costa Mesa attended by students from several high schools serving a cluster of predominantly white, largely affluent Orange County communities. School officials said they have interviewed more than two dozen students and are weighing disciplinary action.

 

The images included students with arms raised in a Nazi salute and about a dozen students crowded around the cups arranged in the shape of a swastika, according to multiple media accounts.

 

Schloss, who resides in London, was in California on a U.S. speaking tour when Jewish leaders in the Newport Beach area asked her to come and meet the students there.

 

The early life of Schloss, a native Austrian, closely parallels that of her German-born stepsister, Anne Frank. Both families moved to Amsterdam to escape anti-Jewish Nazi persecution in their homelands.

 

The two girls lived near each other and were friends before Germany's Dutch occupation, forcing both families into hiding. Frank's personal journal about her family's ordeal was posthumously published in 1947 as "The Diary of a Young Girl."

 

Frank died at age 15 at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in early 1945.

 

Like Frank's family, Schloss was captured by the Nazis in 1944 in Amsterdam and was sent to Auschwitz, where her brother and father died. Schloss and her mother were liberated by the Soviet army, and her mother married Frank's father, Otto, in 1953.

 

Rabbi Reuven Mintz, director of the Chabad Center for Jewish Life in Newport Beach and an organizer of the students' meeting with Schloss, said the controversy should be a "wake-up call" to a rising tide of anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance.

 

The Anti-Defamation League, which tracks acts of racism, reported that the number of anti-Semitic incidents reported at public schools across the United States jumped 94 percent from 2016 to 2017, the latest year such figures are available.

 

Last year, a gunman fatally shot 11 worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue during Sabbath prayers.

 

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Newport Beach, California; Additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; editing by Darren Schuettler and Lisa Shumaker)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-03-08

[Somtamnication]

Thais do not fair any better. But yes, history is being forgotten, sadly.

[Tug]

Blessings to you Eva 

[dick dasterdly]

1 hour ago, Somtamnication said:

Thais do not fair any better. But yes, history is being forgotten, sadly.

I don't understand why it is being forgotten in Western countries, as surely WW2 is still part of the History curriculum?

[Cats4ever]

Teenagers often are not aware of implications in all situations. Hopefully the information now given to them will wake them to the awful implications of their salutes. Part of this might also be the fact that the Germans did have the best uniforms (thanks Hugo Boss) and the swastika does stand out.

[Odysseus123]

6 minutes ago, Cats4ever said:

Teenagers often are not aware of implications in all situations. Hopefully the information now given to them will wake them to the awful implications of their salutes. Part of this might also be the fact that the Germans did have the best uniforms (thanks Hugo Boss) and the swastika does stand out.

"Teenagers often are not aware..."

 

I bet that they were aware.

 

As for German uniforms..

 

 

Edited March 8, 2019 by Odysseus123

[HLover]

White teenage males from an upscale area of California = the master race?

 

Masterly misguided is more accurate.

[mike324]

3 hours ago, dick dasterdly said:

I don't understand why it is being forgotten in Western countries, as surely WW2 is still part of the History curriculum?

believe it or not, WW2 is still studied in schools but its less important nowadays compare to say 20 years ago. Its slowly becoming less and less relevant

[dick dasterdly]

1 hour ago, Cats4ever said:

Teenagers often are not aware of implications in all situations. Hopefully the information now given to them will wake them to the awful implications of their salutes. Part of this might also be the fact that the Germans did have the best uniforms (thanks Hugo Boss) and the swastika does stand out.

 The Western young are too often taken in by 'fashion' and the like, even when they MUST surely know the implications?

 

Prince harry is a prime example ☹️.

[johnnybangkok]

1 hour ago, Odysseus123 said:

"Teenagers often are not aware..."

 

I bet that they were aware.

 

As for German uniforms..

 

 

Classic sketch

[Airalee]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Speaking to reporters afterward, Schloss said the students "told me it was a joke," and she was surprised that they professed not to have fully understood the meaning and consequences of their behavior.

Didn’t understand the meaning?

 

Bullshit.

[Rimmer]

An off topic troll post has been removed also a reply

[Jingthing]

15 hours ago, Airalee said:

Didn’t understand the meaning?

 

Bullshit.

I agree. I don't believe them.

There is definitely a lot more Nazi stuff going on in the USA in the last few years.

Thais might not but even young Americans know what it is.

Just another today at a very surprising place --

Quote

Students at elite Sidwell Friends projected swastikas during assembly

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/students-at-elite-sidwell-friends-projected-swastikas-during-assembly/2019/03/07/fec9847c-410a-11e9-9361-301ffb5bd5e6_story.html

 

[Jingthing]

The cup manufacturer is not amused.

 

Quote

 

Solo Would Prefer That You Not Make Swastikas With Their Cups

 

In the grand tradition of the Tiki Brand and the makers of Skittles, the company that produces Solo cups would like you to please not use their product for racist or Nazi activity.

 

 

Read more: https://forward.com/schmooze/420300/solo-would-prefer-that-you-not-make-swastikas-with-their-cups/

[seahorse]

45 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

The cup manufacturer is not amused.

 

 

Read more: https://forward.com/schmooze/420300/solo-would-prefer-that-you-not-make-swastikas-with-their-cups/

The cup company is using this to promote their product by virtue signalling. 

Edited March 8, 2019 by seahorse

[Jingthing]

16 minutes ago, seahorse said:

The cup company is using this to promote their product by virtue signalling. 

More like they just don't want to be associated with Nazis.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

 

[Rimmer]

Off topic post trying to hijack the thread removed also replies

[wwest5829]

Sit their butts down and have them watch the series, "The World at War", segment on "Genocide" actual film footage ... 

[giddyup]

Even the Royals were ignorant.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-16/the-sun-shows-prince-harry-wearing-nazi-uniform/9752022

[EVENKEEL]

Blame the parents......idiots.

[Grouse]

9 hours ago, steve187 said:

it should never be forgotten, how low the human race can stoop, 2 countries were equally as bad in the 2nd world war.

Which two were equal?

 

The Germans were appalling during WW2. The Russians were bad before and after. But which two were equal?

[Grouse]

9 hours ago, Somtamnication said:

Thais do not fair any better. But yes, history is being forgotten, sadly.

Lack of balance?

[Grouse]

8 hours ago, dick dasterdly said:

I don't understand why it is being forgotten in Western countries, as surely WW2 is still part of the History curriculum?

When I was 14/15 attending a grammar/comp. We were herded into the gym block and sat cross legged on the floor. Actual news reel footage went on for an hour. I have NEVER got over it. Nobody could eat their school dinner. Their were no quips. We were just horrified. I have been unable to  watch Schindler List.

 

This is how to deal with it.

 

2,000 kids getting properly educated.

 

These days, I love Germany and the Germans. But I will never forget.

[steve187]

18 minutes ago, Grouse said:

Which two were equal?

 

The Germans were appalling during WW2. The Russians were bad before and after. But which two were equal?

there are book on the subject

[Grouse]

1 hour ago, wwest5829 said:

Sit their butts down and have them watch the series, "The World at War", segment on "Genocide" actual film footage ... 

Yes but not strong enough. Give the kids both barrels of unedited newsreel footage. Kids carrying heads. Phosphorus experiments. The lot.

[Grouse]

2 minutes ago, steve187 said:

there are book on the subject

I know all about Nazi atrocities and Stalins atrocities. If you are going to refer to a book then post a link or a reference of some kind

[BestB]

Some 25 or so years ago when movie Shindlers List came out, my school rented out the entire theater for 1 week, taking all students to watch the movie. So the entire school had to watch it.

 

From memory i was 16 years old, Even though i already knew about Holocaust, it was still chilling movie to watch.

 

Later in life i had visited one of the camps in Austria and in all honesty, could not speak while there or for an hour afterwords.

 

Visiting cemetery never had such an affect on me. The ghosts or the spirits or whatever you want to call it is still roaming in the air over the camp.

 

Really makes you speechless and fills your eyes with tears and fear, how a human could do things like that to another human

[metisdead]

A Holocaust denier conspiracy post has been removed.. 

 

Edited to add:  A post containing inappropriate language has now been removed:

 

8.) You will not post disruptive or inflammatory messages, vulgarities, obscenities or profanities.

Edited March 9, 2019 by metisdead

[wabothai]

9 hours ago, Odysseus123 said:

"Teenagers often are not aware..."

 

I bet that they were aware.

 

As for German uniforms..

 

 

hhmm. Yale's skull and bones.

[balo]

I think the Western education will never forget WW2, it's a part of any students education. 

 

But kids can joke about anything. This was a bad joke and in today's world with social media , you can't make any jokes about wars and tragedy.