A pair of Minnesota high school students on Thursday were condemned by their school after an image surfaced of them doing Nazi salutes over a Hitler-themed invitation to a school dance.
The teenage boy and girl were photographed with the invitation to Minnetonka High School’s annual Valentine’s Dance called Sweethearts, The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
{mosads}“Sweethearts would be a Hit(ler) w/you, and I could Nazi myself going w/anybody else. Be Mein? Yes or Nein,” the invite poster reads.
The female student posted the photo on her private Instagram account with a caption reading, “Also I would like to state I am not anti-semitic in any way, I hate all races equally.”
Minnetonka Principal Jeff Erikson denounced the post in an email to staff and students obtained by the newspaper, calling it a “deeply offensive message [that] in no way aligns with our school core values: do the right thing and represent us well.”
Erikson wrote that the photo had been removed and said that the students involved and any disciplinary action they may face will not be reported.
“Please know that we take this matter seriously and are committed to ensuring a safe, positive environment for all students,” Erikson said.
Steve Hunegs, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas (JCRC) said in a statement the group was “deeply disturbed by the egregious anti-Semitic image.”
“Such images both insult the memory of Hitler’s victims, as well as the heroic Minnesotans who fought to defeat Nazism,” Hunegs said.
The JCRC pointed out how the picture was posted shortly before Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27.
The group pointed to a New York Times survey from April which found that two-thirds of millennials polled — 66 percent — could not identify the infamous Nazi death camp of Auschwitz.