This past week, schools all over Paramus were let out for Summer. Grad caps were thrown in the air, teachers were collecting their last paycheck, and yearbooks were being signed. Until East Brook Middle School noticed something off about those signed yearbooks.
A student who just finished 8th grade is now in hot water for submitting a picture of baby Hitler as their baby photo for their yearbook. This caused an uproar as students immediately got their yearbooks taken away from them.
Since then, a town full of malls, highways, and Dunkin’ Donuts’ went viral for all the wrong reasons overnight.
The infamous Facebook group “Paramus Moms” has named this “Hitler-Gate” and are debating on whether this mistake was on the student, parent, or teacher.
On one hand, the administrators are to blame for this incident. For one thing, many are questioning how the advisor didn’t realize that this picture was in black and white and clearly taken 137 years ago.
As somebody who was on the yearbook staff for my high school, I know that yearbooks are not taken lightly. We spent months
mulling over every specific detail. In fact our graduation class did not get to have quotes for our pictures because of other districts getting in trouble and our own school having controversial quotes in the past. Something like this wouldn’t have made it to print.
Some are also pointing out that the fact that this child thought this was a funny prank proved that the teachers weren’t doing their job educating their students on the horrors of the Holocaust, while also blaming the parent for the same thing.
However, this child is 14 years old which is old enough to know better. Many people are defending him and saying that it was just a funny prank and not that serious and he probably didn’t understand why it was bad. Realistically, if he knows who Hitler is, he knows what he did.
While I do agree that the advisor was completely in the wrong for not double checking the yearbook and questioning the picture, I think that the student putting the photo in the yearbook was 100% his decision and he knew exactly what he was doing.
Recent East Brook Middle School Alum, Daniella Lattanzi, shares that the students were actually the ones to notice that the picture wasn’t really the student, but they didn’t know who it was first. Then the rumor started to spread, and caught the administrator’s attention.
“When we got our yearbook taken away, everybody was pissed off.” Lattanzi explains. “Most people were threatening to find (the student) and jump him, while others stood there and complained to the teacher saying it’s wrong to take our books away on the last day of school, knowing it’s what the teachers had to do.”
The debacle turned into a sensation overnight with news outlets like TMZ, First Alert 4, ABC7, and even People writing stories about the matter.
I’ve lived in Paramus my whole life and I’m used to seeing stories about robberies at Garden State Plaza, or a new viral fast food chain opening up on Route 17, but never something like this.
I really hope that in the future we can make sure that our children not only know our world’s history, but also the importance of it. The fact of the matter is that this was not a funny prank or just “kids being kids”. Hopefully, this student learns the importance of digital footprints.
As of now, neither the student or parent has let out a formal apology.
