Forced to dig mass graves and greet Hitler: a school employee in Washington arranged a Holocaust game for 3-graders

An employee of Watkins Elementary School forced third graders in a library classroom to reproduce scenes from the Holocaust, advising them to dig mass graves for their classmates and simulate shooting at victims. TheWashingtonPost.

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The employee was sent on vacation on December 17. Her name was not disclosed.

She allegedly assigned certain roles to the students. She selected one student to play Adolf Hitler, according to an email from Watkins Elementary School Principal Scott Berkowitz to the parents of third graders.

This student is Jewish, according to his parents. At the end of the exercise, the child was told to pretend to commit suicide, as Hitler did.

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Originally on December 17, the students were in the library class for a self-guided project that they were to present to their classmates before the winter break.

“But the instructor asked students to participate in the re-enactment during the allotted exploration time,” Berkowitz wrote to parents in an email.

“I want to acknowledge the seriousness of this poor instructional decision, as students should never be asked to act out or depict any atrocity, especially genocide, war or murder,” Berkowitz said in an email.

Another parent of the student, who was involved in the reconstruction, said that her son had to pretend to be a train to a concentration camp and then act as if he was dying in the gas chamber. According to his parents, he also had to act as if he was shooting at his peers. The parent told everything on condition of anonymity and refused to give the name of the child.

The employee allegedly made anti-Semitic comments during the reconstruction. The parent said that when the children asked why the Germans did this, the employee replied, "Because the Jews ruined Christmas."

The parent added that the school employee asked the students not to tell anyone about this after the renovation, but they told their class teacher.

The incident was reported to the DC Public Schools Comprehensive Alternative Solutions and Equity Team. The employee is now on vacation awaiting an investigation at the school.

“This was not an approved lesson plan, and we sincerely apologize to our students and families affected by this incident,” a DCPS spokesperson said.

According to an email from Berkowitz, the entire class met with the school's mental health care team after the incident.

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Other local schools have reported cases of bigotry in recent months.

Earlier this month, at Woodrow Wilson High School in northwest Washington, several swastikas, the n-word and the phrase “white power,” were scrawled on the wall of a men's room, according to student reporters in Beacon, an independent school newspaper.

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