Warning: Handle With Care

"It makes me feel sick. What on earth were the teachers thinking?"

"It would not be appropriate to give this kind of play the green light for schoolchildren at any time, least of all on the eve of Yom Kippur [Solemn Jewish Day of Atonement]."

Parent of Jewish pupil at Millfield School, Somerset, England

"The play is critically acclaimed and has been performed in many schools over the last 25 years. It deals with shocking historical events and is intended to educate about manipulation and intolerance."

"However, we should not have staged this play. Regardless of the good intentions, nobody should ever be encouraged to role play such actions."

"We are sorry for the hurt that has been caused and we have changed our approach to vetting performances significantly so that this will never happen again."

"[I] personally investigated the matter and offered an apology to the students. They were not asked to delete these images."

Gavin Horgan, headmaster, Millfield School

Pupils at elite public school Millfield perform Hitler salutes during a play about the Fuhrer

 

Form 6 students at a 'public' (private) boarding school in Britain were treated to a one-man play about Adolf Hitler. At the conclusion of the play they performed a Nazi salute: "Heil Hitler!". Some of the students took photographs of the results showing pupils laughing and performing the Sieg Heil salute while looking at a Swastika flag, and facing the actor who wrote the play and who says he set out to teach young people how easily people can be manipulated and led into racist beliefs.

If that was the goal, it appears to have gone somewhat awry. Rather than being horrified at the outcome of the fascist Third Reich's leader's having drawn the world into a global conflict meant to elevate Nazi Germany to sole world power status, and on the way eliminating the lives of six million Jews, among them hundreds of thousands of children just like the student observers, the students came away from the experience somewhat elevated.

With the exception of at least the Jewish students among them who know their history rather well. and who returned home to inform their parents of what had occurred as a learnable moment at a school where the annual fees hit $75,000 to achieve a well-rounded education for questing minds. Britain's current defence secretary Ben Wallace, is an alumni of the school.

Some parents, alerted by their children with respect to the staged play, complained to the school administration. One parent pointed out that the one-man play had taken place mere hours before the holiest day of the Jewish calendar Yom Kippur. Pupils themselves complained to the headmaster. Pupils, it seems were not informed beforehand of the content of the play, meant to transport an audience "in a journey into themselves facing their own intolerance and gently coaxing an understanding of the mindset of a nation that could allow such a man to take control", reads the play's author's website.

The Scotsman has described the play as "terrifying, searing, transfixing". It was performed in over 20 countries. George Santayana's "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", was cited as being inspirational for  the playwright, Pip Utton. And it is his intention to continue performing his play in schools. His play, he emphasized modestly, "is recognized as one of the most important anti-racism, anti-intolerance plays of the past 25 years".

 

Students were told to delete footage and images from the event    (Google Maps)

"[I] manipulated [pupils into performing the salute as part of an attempt to educate them and was in no way attempting to glorify that horrible, horrible salute."

"I said I wanted them to perform a special show of gratitude by raising their right arms in the air, then bring their hand down to clap their knee."\

"As their hands went up I told them, 'it seemed to work in Berlin'. I was in no way attempting to glorify that horrible, horrible salute. The point was to show how people can be manipulated and how easy it is."

"Believe me, it is shocking for me to see it happen."

Pip Utton, solo performer, producer, Hitler one-man play