Teens need Holocaust education to counteract Nazi imagery online, experts say

Michelle Glied-Goldstein says her late father Bill Glied, a Holocaust survivor, would be "heartbroken" to see the current spate of antisemitic incidents in Toronto schools.

In just over a month, Canada's biggest school board has seen at least six events: from middle schoolers performing a Nazi salute in front of a Jewish teacher, to a hate-crimes investigation of three separate high schools being spray-painted overnight Wednesday with the same Nazi symbols.

"It truly is gut-wrenching," said Glied-Goldstein, who runs an organization called Carrying Testimony to share the stories of Holocaust survivors.

"I definitely feel like there is a lot more of it in the last few years and probably in the last two years in particular."

In Toronto, Glied-Goldstein is part of the school board's response to this disturbing trend, and will be speaking to thousands of students in the schools where the incidents occurred, sharing her late father's story through a presentation and a video interview with him.

But experts say what seems to be a rise of antisemitism in schools is not limited to Toronto, or the last month — and suggest a lack of education is part of the problem.

In Markham, Ont., Marilyn Sinclair founded Liberation75, a global organization dedicating to commemorating the liberation of concentration camps.

"This is not just a Toronto problem," said Sinclair, who is  regularly in touch with Holocaust awareness organizations across the country.

"They all tell the same stories that they have antisemitism in all of their schools. They have swastikas painted on the walls of the schools. The Nazi imagery has gone out of control within the schools."

Talia Freedhoff agrees with that. The Grade 12 student in Ottawa recently wrote an article for the Canadian Jewish News about her experiences moving to a public school after attending a Jewish private school. She says she's experienced insensitivity to the needs of Jewish students, with  teachers scheduling tests or assignments on major Jewish holidays, and has heard from other Jewish students about overt antisemitism.

"I've heard of people who had swastikas drawn on school supplies," said Freedhoff.  "I've heard a lot of really bad things ... like money being thrown at Jewish students because they are Jewish."

During the Second World War, the German Nazi regime persecuted and murdered approximately six million Jewish people throughout Europe. Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration or extermination camps to be killed with poison gas or subjected to forced labour. Some of the camps were also used for other groups persecuted by the Nazis such as Roma, homosexuals and political opponents. You can learn more about the largest of the Nazi death camps here: Life after Auschwitz.

Antisemitism in schools is something Winnipeg father Ron East and his son Shai know well. 

Shai says the bullying for being Jewish started when he was only in Grade 7, with a tap on the back from another student.