Belgian school students have been accused of anti-Semitic bullying of a Jewish classmate, whom they allegedly sprayed with deodorant while he was showering at school to simulate Nazi gas chambers.
The three students told their Jewish classmate they were “gassing” him during the incident. According to the boy’s mother, the students used deodorant cans and pressed the canister’s nozzles to the boy’s body, causing burns and skin irritations on his back. She said it was one of dozens of incidents in which her son was subjected to violence, anti-Semitic jokes and intimidation.
Other students were interviewed by the school and confirmed the anti-Semitic nature of the “gassing” incident and the recurrence of jokes and taunts referencing the Holocaust in the student’s bullying by the three other classmates. All of the students are now 12 years old, but this incident took place when they were 11.
The mother of the alleged victim filed a police complaint last week over the bullying, which she said her son detailed to her. The mother took this course of action after reporting the harassment to the faculty without any joy.
“She downplayed the situation each time we complained,” the mother said of the teacher they spoke to, who was not named. “My son is graduating from elementary school and will leave the school, but I am taking these actions so that teachers and the school administration realize they cannot disregard this bullying.”
