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.

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.

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.