Gelsenkirchen – Muslim students of Arab and Turkish
origin protested participation in an International Holocaust Remembrance Day
event in Germany, while their high school’s administration showed understanding
for their criticism of Israel.
“Some Muslims students said they would not participate in
the event,” said Florian Beer, a teacher at the school in the city of
Gelsenkirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia state, Der Westen newspaper reported on
Thursday.
The Holocaust remembrance event was part of a global
commemoration in which participants take selfie photographs along with a sign
saying “I Remember“ or “We Remember.“ A blackboard at the school was defaced
with the sentence: “F*** Israel, free Palestine.” The school was not able to
identify the perpetrator.
Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Jerusalem office of the
Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Jerusalem Post on Friday, “Muslims students
are greatest in need of Holocaust education, so it would be unfortunate if they
were excused from those activities.”
Zuroff, who is Wiesenthal’s chief Nazi-hunter, added,
“Given that Holocaust consciousness is a central idea of civic identity in the
Federal Republic, it is doubly important for families that come from countries
with deep antisemitic traditions and no knowledge of the Holocaust and the
destruction of European Jewry.”
The Weiterbildungskolleg Emscher-Lippe school, where the
protest unfolded, has 500 students, 40% of whom have a migrant background.
School director Günter Jahn told Der Westen it was good
that there was student opposition to the remembrance event. “It is important
that there is criticism. That is the basis for a discussion.” He added that in
certain communities, criticism of Israel is demanded.
The school is located in the northern part of the Ruhr
region and Gelsenkirchen’s population in 2015 was roughly 260,000.
Some of the students allowed themselves to be photographed
with the remembrance signs but declined to permit the photographs to be
displayed on the Internet. A number of students, according to Der Westen,
asked, “Why always the Jews?” The students added there are, after all, other
problems in world.
Beer said the school likes to be provocative because there
are always events at the school that leave an “aftertaste of antisemitism.” He
added that representatives from the World Jewish Congress have been invited to
come speak at the school.
