Crime

Teen Who Played a ‘Jew’ for School Holocaust Simulation Sues After ‘Nazis’ Allegedly Attack Him

Andrew Yara, a 19-year old high school student, has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Perryton Independent School District after he was injured while playing the role of a Jew during a Holocaust simulation for history class. 

According to the Amarillo Globe News, select students were given red ribbons, which made them Jews, while the students with no ribbons were deemed Nazis.

“(The Jews) must do everything school faculty or other students tell them to, including picking up other students’ trash, being taken outside and sprayed with water hoses, bear-crawling across the hot track, carrying other students’ books and even carrying other students,” Yara’s complaint said.

The exercise allegedly counted for 60% of a major test grade, and if a “Jew” didn’t do everything they were told, they would fail.

Texas Teen Playing a Jew for Holocaust Simulation files Civil Rights Lawsuit After Nazis Attack

(Photo: Perryton IndependentSchool District)

The suit, the Amarillo Globe News writes, centers around one offense in particular:

On one occasion…the 100-pound Yara was ordered to carry on his back a classmate who outweighed him by 70 pounds. As he carried the heavier student, another jumped on his back and Yara fell backward, the suit said.

As Yara climbed to his feet, a student “jumped on his back again, causing a ‘shocking, burning pain’ to shoot down both of Andrew’s legs and from his pelvis,” the suit said. “Throughout the remainder of the day, Andrew felt a pain from his lower back down through his legs.”

Yara subsequently suffered from a series of medical conditions…His doctor told him he had a partially dislocated hip.  He passed out from dehydration at work and endured what the suit described as seizure-like activity while at a Pampa church, the complaint said.

In the suit, Yara and his parents are asking the district to pay for medical expenses, mental and emotional anguish and attorneys’ fees. The amounts are unspecified.

Texas Teen Playing a Jew for Holocaust Simulation files Civil Rights Lawsuit After Nazis Attack

The simulation was intended to teach students about the horrific treatment of Jews during WW2 (Photo: AP)

The school suspended the “Red Ribbon Program” on Tuesday, though the school’s superintendent said the decision was not related to the lawsuit.

“We can say, ‘Teach the Holocaust in 10th grade and here’s what should be included,’” he said, “but we can’t say whether to do that by a lecture or a movie or role-playing,” because of state education codes.

He declined to comment further.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Comments (27)

  • lukerw
    Posted on May 17, 2012 at 7:14am

    It’s the old Guards & Prisoners Experiment all over again: Even if Role Playing, Humans will adopt their Role, and do harm to each other!

    Report Post » lukerw  
  • Findalis
    Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:00am

    I wonder if criminal charges can be brought against the “Nazis” involved in this episode. Add to it a “Hate Crime” charge and sit back. Add the teacher(s) involved and Superintendent and this teaching experiment will never be repeated.

    Report Post » Findalis  
  • The Third Archon
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 10:47pm

    There are DEFINITELY real problems with the way this was implemented, but the idea of making students experience firsthand a small small small taste of the discrimination and suffering of Jews at the hands of the Nazis is not out of hand. We did not come into this life to avoid suffering, but rather to attain human excellence. In the course of attaining human excellence, it is necessary to avoid as much as possible for ourselves and others that suffering which is gratuitous, which serves no purpose (i.e. the Nazis being not the only or first, but one of the most infamous, examples), and to embrace that suffering which is necessary to the attainment of human excellence.

    If our fear of suffering proves one thing, it is that we have not yet suffered enough. Suffering is not to be feared in and of itself–it is to be either shunned or embraced based upon the purpose it serves, but NEVER feared.

    It is difficult to even begin to conceive of the depths of depravity and the heights of nobility to which every human is capable of reaching, yet it is CRITICAL that we instill a realistic sense of our capacities within ourselves if we have ANY pretense to master the beast from which we came and to exert ourselves in the becoming of something more than what we currently are.

    We CANNOT be too bold, take too much risk, make too much sacrifice, in the pursuit of morality–human excellence. Everything of value has a price.

    Report Post » The Third Archon  
  • burnbabylon
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 7:35pm

    “select students were given red ribbons”
    Selected on what basis?

    Report Post »  
    • KoolAidDrinker
      Posted on May 17, 2012 at 3:03am

      If your daddy is a Republican, you get a red ribbon (red state). If you have two daddies or two mommies, you are get to be one of the chosen, no ribbon elite. This is just an exercise by the ‘left’ to condition young skulls, disguised as a history lesson.

      Report Post » KoolAidDrinker  
  • fiundagner
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 7:34pm

    Wait. Did I miss somethig here? this kid is 19 years old and in 10th grade? is this a typo, or is our educational system really as bad as the redneck jokes make it out to be

    Report Post »  
  • ms4kidz
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 7:17pm

    Our middle school does something similar in 8th grade. It doesn’t go beyond the “jews” sitting on the floor at the back of the classroom and having to enter the classroom after the rest of the kids. The “jews” are distinguished with a yellow triangle they have to wear all day though. When my now 16 yo was in the class, she convinced some of her friends to help her make a ton of yellow triangles. They got to school early and handed out the triangles to ALL the kids, in every grade. That year everyone was a “jew” This year the program had to be stopped when one of the girls started crying and became very upset because she had to sit on the floor.

    After reading Anne Frank, my current 8th grader had to write an essay about what it would be like to be a jew in nazi germany. She pretty much decided “it wouldn’t be much fun because you could be killed for doing normal kid stuff.”

    Report Post »  
    • The Third Archon
      Posted on May 16, 2012 at 10:48pm

      “After reading Anne Frank, my current 8th grader had to write an essay about what it would be like to be a jew in nazi germany. She pretty much decided “it wouldn’t be much fun because you could be killed for doing normal kid stuff.””
      Yeah, that’s pretty accurate.

      Report Post » The Third Archon  
  • YallComeBack
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 6:36pm

    Oh what fun! Isn’t this just the school you would want to send your lids to?

    And try to imagine what it is like at this school when they try to teach “history” and roll play what the KKK did after the Civil War.

    This is what passes for idiotic “education” these days.

    And for modern history, I wonder who gets to pretend to be a TSA agent.

    Report Post »  
  • Byrn67
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 6:26pm

    when i was in school if thay had of pulld that crapp there would have ben a riot . Parents just dont teach there kids to stan up for themselves anymore kids now days are brainles robots .

    Report Post » Byrn67  
  • Individualism
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 5:22pm

    hey lets modernize it abit and make it more American, ok for the nazis, they will shave their head bald and put on blue and brown uniforms and have a gun and badge on them and one can have a tsa patch on them. for the jews, just dress up as your normal american citizen or muslim. Ok nazis taze and than shoot law abiding citizens for verbal refusal or not moving fast enough, than beat them up and get 10 others to help you do so. Or you can have president aka the fuhere use NDAA to round em up and send them to fema camps. you see kids its already here in america and coming soon in full scale.

    Report Post » Individualism  
  • LeadNotFollow
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 4:46pm

    …
    Why were the high school students who jumped on him, not held accountable as well?
    The were old enough to be charged with assault, inflicting injury.

    Report Post »  
    • Findalis
      Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:02am

      The victim was a Jew so it is acceptable to hurt, mutilate and kill him. Welcome to the 21st Century were anti-Semitism is not only acceptable, but lauded.

      Report Post » Findalis  
  • Constantine Ivanov
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 4:33pm

    I as a Jew think that it’s hard to invent a more idiotic educational program related to Holocaust than this one. If not to mention that schools “mysteriously” don’t offer educational programs exposing a lot more dreadful, Armageddon-like tragedies caused by Bolsheviks/Commies, starting from Russia to all other Commie countries.

    Report Post » Constantine Ivanov  
  • tzion
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 4:25pm

    I went to a Jewish private school from kindergarten until high school and at no point was anything like this done for any reason. Our Holocaust education involved plays, visits from Holocaust survivors, discussing how our own families had been impacted, and even visiting Poland itself during high school.

    Report Post »  
  • Cavallo
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 4:07pm

    These people are done. The public school system WILL harm your child. Bank on it.

    Report Post » Cavallo  
  • Rowgue
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 4:06pm

    Who are the insanely stupid morons that thought this was a good idea?

    Gee lets have an event where we encourage half our students to bully the other half, and tell the people designated to be bullies that they have to sit there and take it or they fail.

    Report Post »  
  • TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 4:04pm

    It‘s all fun ’n games until the little Nazi’s jump you from behind… at the insistence of Liberal education Reich.

    Report Post » TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12  
  • inblack
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 4:04pm

    Duh.

    You don’t have to teach kids about bullying, they know all about it. This was just taken by the kids as an excuse to bully.

    Report Post »  
    • The Third Archon
      Posted on May 17, 2012 at 1:31am

      It is one thing to know a thing, another to know that it is wrong, and still another to know WHY it is wrong. Children are not BORN knowing this–they must be taught. And some of them NEVER learn it.

      Report Post » The Third Archon  
  • Locked
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 4:03pm

    … some teacher hasn‘t read about Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment. Pretty basic reading in any psychology class, and also an example of how this kind of acting can get out of hand. There’s a reason such experiments are done in laboratories now and not with school kids.

    Report Post »  
  • SacredHonor1776
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 3:59pm

    Wow, this is disgusting…

    Report Post »  
  • junior1971
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 3:57pm

    Are you frekin kiddin me!! Flood these worms with phone calls and e-mails so they can be enlightened as to the number of us who will protect ALL our children at ANY cost! SOBS!!!

    Report Post » junior1971  
    • scuba13
      Posted on May 16, 2012 at 4:03pm

      At least they didn’t have the “Nazi’s” fire up the ovens in the school cafeteria.

      Report Post » scuba13  
  • Brasil2520
    Posted on May 16, 2012 at 3:57pm

    LOL ! 19 years old ! in HS ! that “kid” must stay in HS just for the young tang.

    Report Post » Brasil2520  

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