A NEW Jersey school sparked fury after a fifth-grader was dressed as Adolf Hitler for a school project – and wrote: “I was pretty great” in an essay.
A photo of Hitler and the offending work was plastered on the walls of Maugham Elementary School in Tenafly, New Jersey for weeks, causing outrage among parents.
“My greatest accomplishment was uniting a great mass of German and Austrian people behind me,” the girl’s handwritten essay reads.
“I was pretty great wasn’t I,” according to the essay.
“I was very popular and many people followed me until I died. My belif [sic] in antisemitism drove me to kill more than 6 million Jews.”
Beyond the shockwaves brought on by the completed assignment, the student reportedly came to school dressed as the mass-murdering Nazi, according to NJ.com.
An concerned parent posted pictures of the offensive work on Facebook that had been reportedly displayed on school grounds for at least two weeks, the publication noted.
Those images appear to have since been removed.
Fuming locals teed off on the school project in reaction to the parent’s social media account, according to the New York Post.
“This is one of the most f’d up things I have ever seen,” one person commented.
“How is this possible in one of the most Israeli towns in the country. I am disgusted,” another wrote.
A “fact-finding” effort has begun to get more answers behind the girl’s Hitler assignment and explain why it was prominently shown off on a school wall.
“Unfortunately, this assignment has been taken out of context, resulting in understandable anger and concern,” Tenafly Public Schools Superintendant Shauna DeMarco attempted to explain in a statement.
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The matter is apparently a huge misunderstanding.
The superintendent wrote that she first became aware of the “Character Development project” on Friday, according to the Post Millennial.
In her statement, DeMarco later learned that the autobiographical project was assigned by a teacher “who happens to be Jewish.”
It was also intended to challenge students to “speak from the perspective of one of these individuals and how they might have perceived and rationalized their actions.”
DeMarco understood the source of the uproar after the photo captured the project being “displayed” at the school.
But she added without understanding the full intentions of the assignment the anger amounted to “justifiable concerns.”
She stated that the school condemns any kind of antisemitism, racism or bias.
“Given that the lesson was specifically issued within the context of social justice, it is unfair to judge any student or teacher in this matter.”
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