To object to childrens paintings of Hitler being displayed in school?

[coribells]

My DS is in year 6 . He will be studying WW 11 this year in History. Obviously a big part of that will be learning about the Nazis and Hitler.
Over the past couple of years ive noticed childrens work displayed in the entrance hall, and in the assembly hall. These have included quite a number of childrens paintings of Hitler and descriptions of his early life etc. My stomach turns whenever I see these displays, it almost looks like he is being glorified in some way.
I am of german descent and my kids father is Jewish. Am I being over sensitive. ? would be unreasonable to talk the teacher is about the manor in which they display pictures of Hitler?

YANBU

Well, the OP does want the censor what the teacher has chosen to do, otherwise she wouldn't be raising this with the school.

I think an image of Hitler is only glorification if it is accompanied by teaching the class that he was a wonderful human being. Clearly that is not going to be happening.

If my kids (at an appropriate age) drew a picture of an IRA member at school, I wouldn't complain and expect them to stop, so long as it was accompanied by a lesson telling them what the IRA actually did and wasn't giving them the impression that the IRA were good people.

Big word, censor. Shame it doesn't apply here.

Does anyone really need to be told that numerous portraits of Hitler are not the best decoration for a primary school? Really? Isn't that quite obvious to anyone with more than one braincell ?

Please tell me how it doesn't apply, if the aim of the OP is to have them removed?

I don't think of displays as decoration. I view them as a demonstration of what the children have been learning about.

Next weeks lesson, Swastika bunting and learn the own SS two-step. Next term; a cross stitch of the Khmer Rouge killing fields and knit your own Saddam death-mask.

This would make me very uncomfortable. You don't need to paint, much less display, pictures of Hitler in order to study WWII. And it risks causing deep offence to anyone who is related to people who perished in the camps - not only Jewish people.

Seems a bit odd to me. Do they display swastika's too?

Writing about Hitler, yes, but a portrait? Odd at Y6.

Otoh, if people aren't allowed to reproduce the image, it arguably gives it greater power.

MrSunshine, you are so funny not

I would object to this too.

Why do you need to paint Hitler when learning about WWII?

Would they paint pics of the Klan burning crosses, and lynching black people if they were learning about the civil rights movement?

Displaying of paintings of dictators is pretty well documented, from Hitler to Stalin - echoing this with paintings in a school is just odd.

Vivienne, IRA terrorists are an entirely different kettle of fish. There is wrong on both sides of the NI question, it's not mass genocide.

YANBU - what on earth can children learn by painting a portrait of Hitler?

It is just so inappropriate. What were they thinking? They can learn what Hitler looked like at the same time as practicing art skills?! WTF?

How about some cross-curricular maths exercises while they are about it - "if it takes one canister of Zyclon B to kill 200 Jews, how many Jews could the Nazis kill with 5 canisters?"

Or English - "write a Limerick about one of the leaders or one of the victims of the Third Reich"

Apologies for the offensive example, but really if people think this is about the OP wanting 'censorship' can you not see how inappropriate this is?

Er, Yoko, you do know what IRA terrorists actually did, don't you?

I wouldn't say they are an entirely different kettle of fish - they murdered innocent people for their own political gain.

Yes, Karma, but you missed my point. There were both Republican and Unionist terrorists. FYI my ancestors were IRA members before the Troubles, in the early 20th century, before it was a terrorist organisation.

IRA members are not genocidal maniacs, and none of them killed over 6 million people. That was a 2 sided fight, not mass murder.
Yet another thing that should be fairly obvious. My 8 year old would give you this look---> if you put them in the same grouping

I go away for a few hours and a thread about Hitler is now talking about the IRA. Only on MN!

The IRA werent genocidal dictators. They were one side of a civil war. There was killing from the other side too. All for political gain.

Hitler was a man with sick beliefs who managed to turn a whole country against themselves. He killed millions in the most inhumane way possible.

FWIW Im not sure I would agree with paintings of IRA members being displayed either, but the difference is, there wasnt one glorified face of the IRA used as propaganda.

Coribells, do let us know what the school has to say for itself. I'm bewildered - it just seems such a strange thing to do.

I never said that there were not Republican and Unionist terrorists. That doesn't make the IRA less terrorist (it may not have started out that way, but that is how it ended up).

MrSunshine I have no hesitation in putting the sort of people who would put bombs in shopping centres etc, with the intention of murdering innocent people, in the same category as the likes of Hitler. They didn't kill fewer people than him because they were better people, only because they weren't in a position to carry out murder on his scale.

Raspberry

I think it's because writing about him explains stuff. A 10 year old's painting explains nothing.

Yanbu to not like them

But he was quite a major player in ww2

Raspberry

Yes, that's true. My DS1 did learn about propaganda, and they drew cartoons etc. It would be interesting to see if these pictures were drawn with that purpose

Hmm, was ready to say YABU...

But then thought about if my childs school was putting up posters of Cromwell, I really wouldn't be happy.

Ah, Hitler.

Now there was a painter.

He could paint a whole house in an afternoon.

Incidentally, it seems that Hitler also had a thing about paintings of anthropomorphic animals, dogs playing cards and the like. Creepy.