Two schools in Brussels refuse to participate in Holocaust commemoration ceremony

The schools released a statement that they “do not want to impose a discussion about the Holocaust on children given the current situation in the Middle East.”

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Two schools in Brussels are refusing to participate in the Stolpersteine (Stumbling Stones) ceremony commemorating Belgian Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, implying that Israel’s war in Gaza was the reason.

The schools issued a statement that “the schools do not want to impose a discussion about the Holocaust on children given the current situation in the Middle East.”

The Stolpersteine project includes bronze plaques with the names of victims of the Nazis embedded in the sidewalks close to where they lived.

Each stone is engraved with the name, date of deportation, and, if known, the place and date of death.

After a parent complained, one of the schools also took down an Israeli flag from a “Flags of the World” exhibit.

European Jewish Association Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin criticized the school’s decision not to participate in the ceremony and the faulty association between the Holocaust and the current conflict in Gaza.

“At a time of unprecedented antisemitism, we must pass on the historical warning of the greatest crime against humanity to the next generation. The Holocaust transcends politics,” he said.

“Attempting to draw a connection between the mass murder of six million Jews and the current war in Gaza is appalling and represents a profound moral failure on the part of two schools with a moral, civic, and human duty to educate the next generation about the reality of the Holocaust.”

“I believe the decision stems from a desire to avoid offending the parents of a certain group of students from a specific religious background,” he added.

“But this is capitulation to the most abhorrent lie — one seeks to equate the Holocaust with the war in Gaza. Belgium’s education minister must intervene. We can’t erase the truth to appease a minority that may hold a different view.”