MINNEAPOLIS — Minnetonka school leaders continue to reassure the greater school community after an anti-Semitic post surfaced on social media Thursday night.
The post features a picture showing two Minnetonka High School students giving a Nazi salute and holding a sign that makes references to Hitler and Nazis.
Minnetonka High School Principal Jeff Erickson immediately reached out to parents and students about the incident on Thursday night, calling it a “deeply offensive message [that] in no way aligns with our school core values.”
In a letter to the school community Friday, the Minnetonka Schools Superintendent Dennis Peterson also condemned the post, calling it an “outrageous act” that “causes great sadness and pain.”
Peterson continued: “The larger issue is that we, as a community, must do an even better job of educating students about Hitler and the Holocaust.”
And on that point, the Executive Director at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas absolutely agrees.
“There are serious levels of lack of knowledge about fundamentals of the Holocaust. Millennials – 66 percent – cannot identify or cannot explain Auschwitz,” said Steve Hunegs of JCRC, referring to a 2018 survey by The New York Times that showed a majority of the participants could not identify the notorious concentration camp.
Hunegs added the community needs to do more to teach about the Holocaust to honor the victims, survivors, veterans and history itself.
“It betrays the memories of all those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators but also our World War II veterans,” Hunegs said, adding: “The philosopher [George] Santayana says probably most famously: ‘Those who don’t know the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them.’”