Nazi salute directed at Mount Scopus students at zoo
Student makes Nazi salute at Mount Scopus students during Werribee Zoo excursion.
A student from another school made a Nazi salute at Mount Scopus Memorial College students during a Year 11 excursion to Werribee Open Range Zoo on Tuesday.
The incident happened during a safari bus tour of the site at the end of the day, after the students had completed the main part of the excursion.
“What’s been reported to us is a student from another school had seen students from Mount Scopus in uniform, and proceeded to make a Nazi salute to our students,” Mount Scopus principal Dan Sztrajt told The AJN.
Sztrajt said staff were in a difficult position because the group was on a moving bus.
“It wasn’t as though we could physically remove our students from where this happened, but our staff acted very quickly to remove our students as best as they could,” he said.
Staff spoke with the students involved, provided support and reported the incident to both the other school and the zoo. Sztrajt said he expected to speak with the other school later that day. The college has also been in contact with the parents of the students directly involved.
“At the moment, we’re still going through an investigative process and trying to ascertain exactly what happened, who was involved, how it all happened and how we can support those students that were involved,” he said.
Sztrajt said he was conscious of the age of the student responsible.
“We are educating children, and children make mistakes, and that’s what school education is all about. It’s about learning, allowing students to make mistakes, and helping them along the way,” he said.
“Unfortunately, the frequency with which those mistakes happen to be antisemitic and targeting one community in Australia is what I think is a problem.”
He said the salute could not be treated as something the student had arrived at on their own.
“At the end of the day, I can’t help but think someone had to teach this child that when you see a Jew, the appropriate response is to do a Nazi salute. That’s not innate. That’s not something anyone’s born with. That is something very specific that had to be taught to a child, that this is an appropriate thing to do, this is a funny thing to do, this is a reasonable thing to do, and I’m concerned by that.”
Sztrajt said he did not want to overplay a single incident, but was troubled that the college had needed to develop a routine response to antisemitism.
“It was a single student doing something very, very inappropriate and unacceptable,” he said. “The fact that we’re dealing with these routinely now, the fact that we have a process in place to manage antisemitic incidents like this … I have a script that I work through when speaking to other principals. I’m disappointed we’re at that point.”
“I’m disappointed these are the sorts of things I deal with as a school principal, and they have nothing to do with education.”
Zoos Victoria has been connected for comment.
comments