Two schools in Anderlecht, Brussels, are refusing to take part in a ceremony marking the laying of Stolpersteine (memory stones) for Belgian Jews murdered during the Holocaust.
The schools explained their decision stating that they “do not wish to impose the children any discussion on the Holocaust given the current conditions in the Middle East.”
One of the schools involved recently removed an Israeli flag that was part of a ‘flags of the world’ event according to reports that sought to explain the decision, at the behest of a parent who had complained about the flag in the school playground.
The Chairman of the Brussels-based European Jewish Association, which represents hundreds of Jewish Communities across Europe, expressed his shock and anger at the decision stating that such an ignorant approach to what happened is precisely why the two schools must attend.
In a statement today Rabbi Menachem Margolin said: “At a time of record rises in antisemitism, it is precisely to the next generation that we should be transmitting the warning from history of the greatest crime against humanity committed.
“The Holocaust is beyond politics. Conflating the mass murder of 6 million Jews with the current conflict with Gaza is shocking and an appalling dereliction of duty on the part of two schools that have a moral, civic, and human duty to transmit the reality of the Holocaust to the next generation.
He added: “I believe that this decision has been taken to not offend the parents of a particular group of children from a particular religious background. This is pandering to the basest of lies: the lie that seeks to draw a similarity with the Holocaust and the War in Gaza. The Minister of Education of Belgium should be intervening. We cannot eradicate the truth to please a minority who may think otherwise.”