TEL AVIV — A New York school district came under fire after publishing a yearbook with a quote from a teacher naming Adolf Hitler as his favorite person in history.
Jeff Acor, a new history teacher at Whitesville Central School, praised the Nazi dictator for doing “many great things for Germany and their youth before the infamous Holocaust.”
Hitler “outed and faced hardships early in life which a lot of people can relate to,” Acor said.
“Adolf is arguably the greatest public speaker in the history of the world. Adolf made many great strides to make Germany a world superpower,” he added.
Laurie Sanders, the superintendent of the Whitesville Central School District, told local media outlets that Acor’s message was misunderstood and taken out of context.
In an interview with the Olean Times Herald, Sanders said she could not elaborate on the episode.
“The best way for me to say it is the statements were incomplete,” Sanders said, “but because there are children, students involved, and because of their privacy, I don’t really want to go into detail.”
However in remarks WIVB, Sanders appeared to defend Acor’s remarks.
“I don’t believe he was joking. He was really looking at it through the lens of history and not — he wasn’t applauding anything he did,” she said. “It’s questions that were asked of him and written down and he never got to see the entire writing.”
The yearbooks are produced by students who are given “the freedom and creative license to create and determine content,” she said.
Nevertheless, the yearbooks have since been returned and improved versions would replace them, Sanders said.
“When we read it, we felt that anything that promoted or maybe perceived to imply hate, regardless of the intent, does not belong in the yearbook or in our school,” said Sanders.
“We just want the community at large to understand that it doesn’t reflect our community or our commitment to acceptance and tolerance in any way,” she added.
Asked whether Acor would face disciplinary action for his statements about Hitler, Sanders told the OTH that district officials “have investigated and no action has been taken.”