Students asked to create yellow badge to commemorate Holocaust
A teacher at an elementary school in Kfar Yona asked her students to create yellow badges as a part of a project to learn about how children survived the Holocaust, sparking outrage from parents.
The assignment also asked students to inscribe a "personal note," which inspired further complaints. Each student received a model badge and was asked to replicate it, accurately cutting a star shape out of an old shirt and embroidering it. Additionally, the teacher sent home a paper for parents with instructions regarding the project. The instructions included an example of a "personal note," which said, "I chose to weave these colorful threads as a symbol of a happy childhood."
Rotem Ben Ami Andres, whose daughter received the assignment, said, "I support allowing my children to express themselves, but if there is something I never want them to identify with personally, it is the yellow badge." She added, "It is important to learn about the memory of those murdered in the holocaust, but it should be done in a critical manner and at an appropriate age. Giving children a badge that 'expresses themselves' is far from that. I do not want my daughter to express herself independently with a yellow badge that the Nazis forced Jews to wear. It is a symbol of oppression, humiliation, and harming Jews, and it belittles the holocaust."
Ben Ami is the granddaughter of a survivor and has many family members who were killed in extermination camps. She decided not to help her daughter prepare the badge and instead made a star with her so that she would not be punished.
"This assignment is frightening and startling," she said. "This is a cynical use of a symbol from a painful topic. Jews experienced horrific atrocities that Satan could not have created. Millions were killed, and now teachers are asking our children to put a yellow badge on and express themselves?"
The Education ministry said in respones that "Teaching the Holocaust is complicated, especially with young students, and educators think a lot about how to describe true evil wihout creating fears. At the school in question, they chose to hold an exhibition that will be designed by students and relate to items on display at the Beit Theresienstadt Museum, which the students will visit. The exhibition is a part of their studies of the Holocaust and the students, god forbid, did not wear the badge."
