WARNING: This story references claims of Holocaust denialism.
Graduating students at two Canadian high schools submitted Holocaust denial quotes in their yearbooks this spring — and the quotes were even published before the schools took action.
Some parents have been left scratching their heads, wondering how no one at the school noticed and allowed the hateful comments to be published.
It could be a lack of education, but experts say students could also be using vague phrases they are exposed to online in the hopes no one will notice.
Holocaust denialism at West Bedford High School
Neli Shpoker heard about the incident through a parents’ Facebook group. Her son, who is in Grade 10 at West Bedford High School in Bedford, N.S., came home talking about it, as well.
The quote questions the figure six million — the documented number of Jews killed in the Holocaust — then offers a number 20 times smaller commonly used by Holocaust deniers.
“Disbelief that it flew by the committee and was in the book,” said Shpoker, when asked what she thought of it.
Her grandparents were Holocaust survivors.
“It pains to see the rise and the ease that those words are being used and without kind of thinking of consequences for others who read it.”
The school has apologized and recalled all the yearbooks, asking students to return them so they can be reprinted without the hateful quote. In an email to parents, the principal, Sean MacDonald, apologized for the “antisemitic and polarizing content.”
“These comments should have been identified and removed before the yearbook was printed,” he said, though he did not explain how no one had noticed the quote before it went to print.
Halifax Regional Centre for Education didn’t respond to CBC News’ request for additional information.
Shpoker doesn’t know what repercussions the student will face.
“I honestly [am] appreciative of … how quick the principal dealt with the situation,” Shpoker said.
CBC News has been unable to reach the student or their parents.
A student wrote a similar quote in their high school yearbook in Pittsburgh, according to various reports.
Coded message at Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute
Another quote, this time in the yearbook for Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute in Toronto, was also published undetected. Ryan Bird, a spokesperson for the Toronto District School Board, apologized for the antisemitic comment. He said students can voluntarily return their yearbooks for new versions.
“There is absolutely no room in our schools for hate or discrimination of any kind, and it will not be tolerated,” he said in a statement to CBC.
The student didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, senior director of policy at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, an organization dedicated to Holocaust education, said she has been in touch with the school since the incident.
She said the quote questions whether the Holocaust happened and propagates hate against Jewish people.
The conspiracy theory states it was impossible for six million Jews to have been killed in concentration camps alone — a claim that was never made. Hundreds of thousands of Jews died in shootings and in the ghettos.
She said she can understand how someone who isn’t familiar with this kind of “coded neo-Nazi language” would not catch its true meaning. But she added that the students likely knew what it meant.
“It would really be impossible to conclude that they didn’t know what they were doing.”
Holocaust denialism increased online during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Andre Oboler, CEO of the Australia-based Online Hate Prevention Institute, and again in the wake of the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“The sorts of content that they’ve been reproducing in the yearbooks is coming from internet memes, things that have gone viral that in the last few years have been becoming increasingly common,” he said.
Because the language is vague, Oboler said he thinks kids are trying to get away with it.
“Maybe they think people won’t know what they’re saying,” he said. “It’ll fly under the radar and … they’ll get away with it while still having the same sort of effect.”
More education needed, says expert
Kirzner-Roberts said the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center offered a restorative justice program to the student involved at Lawrence Park. It’s unclear whether the student accepted.
“We really have to try to make this a learning opportunity for young people involved in these kinds of incidents,” she said.
High school yearbooks from schools in Toronto and Halifax are being recalled and reprinted over their inclusion of antisemitic comments and quotes denying the Holocaust by students.
The non-profit also offered education programs at the high school next fall, which the school is looking into.
“The school has really outdone themselves in trying to address the harm. I really appreciate that, because we don’t see that as often as we’d like.”
Ontario and B.C. introduced mandatory Holocaust education in high school in recent years, due to rising antisemitism.
But Dorota Glowacka, a contemporary studies professor at the University of King’s College in Halifax, said education needs to go beyond the facts and statistics if it’s going to have a lasting impact.
“I believe in teaching in a way that would foster the students’ imagination, that would kind of cultivate the kind of ability to be compassionate, to be empathic toward other people,” said Glowacka, who is also the daughter of a Holocaust survivor.
