High school role play pits 'Germans' against 'Jews'

by Kaitlin | April 11, 2007 at 02:49 pm

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A high school in Texas hosts an annual role playing event in which certain students are assigned the role of "Germans" and others "Jews" in an attempt to educate students about the horrors of the Holocaust. This year, however, the "Germans" were harder on the "Jews" than usual, spitting on them, hitting them, and pushing them down the stairs.

When I was in high school, we did a similar thing with fur traders and natives (I guess it was the Canadian version) but the point of our exercise was to show how traders made deals with the native population. That is, until the teacher asked what one of the kids in the fur trading group (of which I was also a part) would do next, after the natives had refused a particular offer.

Unblinking, the kid said, "Give him the pox and rape his daughter." I remember this very clearly, ten years later. Is this a history lesson, or an excuse to be crude in school? Not sure, but the fact that I remember it probably means something--I doubt the kids being spit on by their classmates will soon forget it. They might even remember why.

During the role play students tagged as Jews were forced to stand against the wall as the "Germans" passed by the hallway, AP reported. The Jewish students had to pick up everyone's garbage at lunchtime and were the last to eat.

But students said the exercise got out of hand when the "German" students spat on and hit the "Jewish" students.

"They would spit on them. They would push them down the stairs. They would be really rude," student Tiffany Zimmerman told AP. "I think it was too rough and over the edge."