Blasphemy: in praise of Mr Hitler

[image added by this
website]New
York State News

Teacher’s lesson on the pros and cons of Hitler draws anger

[Hitler] VOORHEESVILLE,
N.Y. (AP) — A high school teacher here has been ordered to apologize for asking students to debate the pros and cons of
Adolf Hitler.

Anne Lyons instructed her global history students to debate the positive and negative effects of Hitler, Benito Mussolini and
Joseph Stalin as part of a Feb. 5
[2004] lesson exploring how dictators rise to power.

When students asked how they could possibly defend Hitler, Lyons pointed to medical experiments conducted on Nazi concentration camp prisoners, which she said led to medical advancements, the
Times Union of Albany reported in
Wednesday’s editions.

“I believe it was
inappropriate and
insensitive
to the Jewish students,” said Mark
Diefendorf, principal of the suburban Albany
high school. “She has been asked to apologize to
the class. If that will save her job, I don’t
know.”

David
Irving comments:

SO much for the balanced view of global history in New
York state schools. As for a small-world view, the name Shelly
Shapiro sounds familair. Oh yes, she was the one who headed the witch hunt against Fred Leuchter in
Massachusetts, for practising as an engineer (which he didn’t) without a licence (as do thousands of other
Massachusetts engineers). Or am I mistaken?

How insensitive.Several angry parents called the school demanding that officials investigate the lesson. Three parents asked that their children be removed from
Lyons’ class.

“We don’t think the teacher is anti-Semitic,” district Superintendent Allan McCartney told the newspaper. “We think what she said may have been misunderstood.”

Still, Diefendorf said the lesson was probably unsuitable to present to 14- and 15-year-old students.

Shelly Shapiro, who heads Albany’s
Holocaust Friends and
Survivors Education Center, said the center will hold a previously scheduled workshop for school districts across the region in April.

An attempt to reach Lyons Wednesday at the high school for comment was unsuccessful.