High school students in the eastern French city of Strasbourg received mail denying the reality of the Holocaust after they went on a trip to Auschwitz.
Four students and their headmaster recounted in the local newspaper their December visit to the former Nazi death camp. A few days later, all five received letters at their homes claiming that Jews had killed other Jews in Auschwitz.
“We didn’t file a legal complaint, but everyone at the high school was very shocked” said Jean-Pierre Perrin, headmaster of the international high school Pontonniers.
Perrin, who only recently revealed letters, said, “We kept the whole issue down because we didn’t wish to advertise it for the benefit of those” who had sent the mail.
“This incident did teach us something: Hatred is not dead and we all have to be very cautious,” said Perrin, whose school has 900 students from 60 countries.
Students are scheduled to visit another former concentration camp later this month.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
