A video of California high school students giving Nazi salutes while singing a Nazi song emerged on Monday, marking the second time that Orange County teenagers making anti-Semitic actions have come to light in 2019.
The video, first reported on by The Daily Beast, shows student-athletes from Pacifica High School (Garden Grove, California) extending their arms in Nazi salutes while singing along to a Nazi war chant. According to the Daily Beast, they were members of the water polo team.
According to a statement issued Monday by the Garden Grove Unified School District, which oversees the school, the racist incident occurred in November, before “an after school hours, off-campus student athletics banquet in an empty and unsupervised room at the facility.”
“Garden Grove Unified School District and Pacifica High School strongly condemn a video recorded last year of some students who engaged in offensive Nazi-related gestures,” the district said, adding that Garden Grove will be installing anti-bias programs in response to the incident.
A group of high-school athletes in Southern California reportedly gave a Nazi salute and sang a Nazi song during an awards ceremony last year. Their school won’t say how they were disciplined https://t.co/v0umhs50jw pic.twitter.com/2p9eyVRBLQ
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) August 19, 2019
The video was initially circulated among a small group of students on Snapchat and was brought to Pacifica’s attention in March, according to the statement. The district said that federal regulations mean the district cannot reveal details of how the students were disciplined.
In March, students at nearby Newport Harbor High School in Orange County, California, were photographed giving Nazi salutes while near a swastika made out of red cups.
More states are requiring mandatory Holocaust education in public schools. In June, Oregon became the latest to join the movement.
Currently, only 12 states mandate that public schools teach about the Holocaust — the largest genocide in human history.
A survey last year showed that two-thirds of U.S. millennials were not familiar with Auschwitz.
