Town remains divided on whether teens who threw up Nazi salute are guilty or victims of social media backlash

A small Wisconsin town remains divided on whether teens who threw up Nazi salute are guilty or victims of social media backlash.

Kia Morgan-Smith

Jan 25, 2019

While the Baraboo School District in Wisconsin has stood in solidarity with the 60 or so male students accused of throwing up a Nazi salute in a prom photo, a Jewish student named Eva Huffaker had hoped that an apology from her classmates would calm the waters.

The 15-year-old told the Guardian that her Wisconsin town is still torn on whether the boys are innocent or if they should be held accountable for signifying what appeared to be an offensive Nazi Sieg Heil salute.

“There were students who immediately after the picture came out went around saying ”We’re Baraboo proud”, kind of implying that they’re not against this,’ Huffaker said. ‘And there have been antisemitic comments.

“There was an incident where a kid looked at me and he did the white supremacy symbol and then he stood up and did the Sieg Heil.”

The picture, which was taken in 2017 before the Baraboo High School junior prom, started circulating last year on social media and caused outrage after journalist Jules Suzdaltsev called it out on Twitter.

Despite the hateful salute, according to the Wisconsin State Journal, Baraboo School District Administrator Lori Mueller said last year that the students were protected by the First Amendment, and since the photo was taken off campus by a photographer not paid by the school (but who does happen to be one of the students’ parents), no disciplinary action would be taken.

Since the photo surfaced, Keri Olson said several community meetings were held discussing the topic to push for a collective apology. Others however framed the students as victims of vicious social media backlash.

Keri Olson, one of the meeting organizers, sides with the students.

“I can’t imagine being a 17-year-old and having the world looking upon you as the personification of evil,” she said.

“This is a community of 12,000 that all of a sudden has been cast in this light around the world. How do you prepare for that? How do you respond to that? It’s been a state of crisis here.”

Huffaker, 15, said while many of her peers found the picture funny, she said it was hurtful.

The photographer Peter Gust defended the photo saying he simply told the students to wave goodbye to their parents.

“I said, ”OK boys, you’re going to say goodbye to your parents. So wave”’ Gust said. “For society to now turn it around and now blame these kids is absolutely wrong.”

After the photo went viral, Auschwitz Memorial in Poland Twitter account tweeted:

“It is so hard to find words… This is why every single day we work hard to educate. We need to explain what is the danger of hateful ideology rising,” the tweet read.

“Auschwitz with its gas chambers was at the very end of the long process of normalizing and accommodating hatred.’”

Huffaker said: “While they may not know the full effect of how hurtful that gesture is, they know who used it. They know, and a majority of the people in the picture still chose to do it.”