Ukip takes on school for using their photos to illustrate Holocaust slideshow
UKIP will lodge a formal complaint about “political indoctrination in schools” after a picture of its leader Nigel Farage was used during assemblies about the evils of the Holocaust.
Hundreds of students saw the presentations timed to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day.
They included details of Nazi death squads, Jewish ghettos and the rounding-up of millions of Slavs and Romany gypsies.
We were shown a slide of a multicultural society and told how great it was that pupils were from such diverse backgrounds
Asking children how the Holocaust could have happened, teachers at Chellaston Academy in Derby displayed slides with the words Evil, Bloodthirsty, Monsters and Murderers and referred to Melita Maschmann, a German diarist whose work recounts her time in the Hitler Youth and as a propagandist for the regime.
It was the next slide, however, that caused fury with Ukip.
Entitled “There’s no way modern Britain could repeat Melita’s mistakes… right?” it displayed an image of Nigel Farage, with the caption “I wouldn’t want to live next door to a Romanian!” and “Blames bad traffic on eastern Europeans”.
The party was alerted after a pupil told his parents.
He said: “We were shown a slide of a multicultural society and told how great it was that pupils were from such diverse backgrounds.
“But the teacher said that not every one agreed and then moved on to the slide showing a Ukip emblem and a picture of Nigel Farage.”
Mr Farage yesterday confirmed he would report the school to the Department for Education for breaching strict “political indoctrination” clauses in the Education Act 1996.
He said: “This was a vile slur that simply had to be corrected. It is wholly unacceptable that children should be exposed to such prejudice.”
A Ukip spokesman confirmed its lawyers had been informed.
Headteacher Ray Ruszczynski, of the 1,700-pupil school, yesterday denied Mr Farage had been compared with Hitler, and criticised Ukip for overreacting.
He said: “It is absolute nonsense to suggest we implied Nigel Farage was some kind of grim reaper who would bring the next Holocaust. It was more about how our students should be careful in the run-up to the elections to think about what politicians say.”
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Mr Ruszczynski, who retires in the summer after 18 years at the school, said: “I’ve been a teacher a long time and I’ve been astounded by the ferocity of some of the calls we’ve been getting.”
