North Andover High To Host Holocaust Survivor After Swastika Incident

NORTH ANDOVER, MA — A month after a swastika was found drawn on a locker room used by the North Andover High School boys hockey team, the school has announced that it will welcome a Holocaust survivor to speak to students about anti-Semitism.

Chet Jackson, NAHS principal, said Kathy Preston is scheduled to speak to students on March 22. The school coordinated the appearance with the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State.

Jackson said the Cohen Center also will be providing the high school with resources that will assist the staff with conversations with students before and after the presentation.

Though Preston will speak to the high schoolers, Jackson said the district also is looking to extend the educational opportunities to younger students.

"To continue to foster a culture where all of our students feel welcomed, supported and safe both in and out of school, NAHS has also been working collaboratively with our Assistant Superintendent Lorene Marx and North Andover Middle School on educational opportunities for all of our students in grades 6 -12," Jackson wrote in an email to students.

According to the district, Preston, the speaker, was born in Transylvania in 1939 to a Jewish father and Catholic mother.

When she was 5-years-old, Preston escaped a Nazi roundup of Jews in Hungary when a neighbor hid her under the hay in a barn.

However, Preston's father was forced into a ghetto and was arrested by the Hungarian police when he snuck out to see his daughter.

Preston's father ultimately perished at Auschwitz along with 27 other members of her family.

"Kathy and her mother survived," Jackson wrote in an email. "We are honored and extremely fortunate to have Kathy join us to share her story of courage and resilience."

During the week of Feb. 13, the NAHS boys hockey team played a game at the Valley Forum Ice Arena in Lawrence.

After the contest, a swastika was found drawn on a locker room shower wall. According to witnesses, the symbol appeared to have been drawn using a hockey puck.

In a letter to sent to NAHS families at the time, Jackson and North Andover Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Gregg Gilligan said they had received a report about the incident and immediately began an investigation.

Gilligan and Jackson said they also notified police. Though WHDH reported that authorities said they found no crime had been committed.

But the North Andover school officials said in the letter that they take reports of such discrimination very seriously.

"Please know that as a school community, we do not tolerate any acts of discrimination against religion, national origin, race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, homelessness or age," Gilligan and Jackson wrote.

Gilligan and Jackson added: "We are committed to maintaining a school environment, including school sponsored events, that are free of discrimination. Words and symbols of intolerance and hate are wrong, unacceptable and should not have a place in our society.

"The hurt that this symbol causes our Jewish community is profound and, in turn, impacts all in our school community."