Former NJ Librarian Told DC Students To Reenact Holocaust: Report

WASHINGTON, DC — A former New Jersey school librarian has been placed on leave from her job at a Washington D.C. elementary school after instructing third-grade students to reenact scenes from the Holocaust, according to news reports.

The third-graders at Watkins Elementary School in Southeast D.C. were told to reenact the digging of mass graves and the shooting of victims as part of a library class, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

Kimberlynn Jurkowski, who led the class, was placed on leave Friday.

She was convicted in October 2013 of defrauding the Hamilton Township School District in New Jersey of nearly $24,000 in a tutoring scam, according to The Press of Atlantic City. The publication reported that the district paid for tutoring for Jurkowski’s two children, but she and the tutor continued to bill the district for several months after the tutoring stopped from October 2011 through March 2012.

"I want to acknowledge the gravity of this poor instructional decision, as students should never be asked to act out or portray any atrocity, especially genocide, war, or murder," Watkins Elementary School Principal MScott Berkowitz said in an email to the third-graders' parents.

One student was instructed to act as Adolf Hitler and then pretend to commit suicide at the end of the reenactment, as Hitler did in April 1945.

In his letter sent to the parents, Berkowitz said the reenactment included "students being asked to portray participants from the Holocaust like Adolf Hitler, digging ditches to serve as mass graves, and simulated shootings. It was also alleged that the staff member leading the lesson also made anti-Semitic statements."

One of the parents said her child told her that when the children asked why the Germans did this, the staff member said it was "because the Jews ruined Christmas," the Washington Post reported.

Another third-grader's mother said the staff member who gave the lesson instructed the students not to tell their parents. The mother said the students told their homeroom teacher who reported the incident.

D.C. Public Schools said in a statement Sunday that the Holocaust reenactment "was not an approved lesson plan." The school system apologized to the students and families "who were subjected to this incident."

The school system said it has launched an investigation into what happened.

A librarian at the school told FOX5 that "somebody's misquoting what happened in the library that day."

There was no Holocaust reenactment during the instruction period in the library, the librarian said. "I'm going to wait for the investigation. I was shocked to see it myself," she said, referring to the principal's letter sent to parents, according to FOX5.

With reporting by Mark Hand, Patch Staff.