A school in New Jersey recently removed a Holocaust-themed poster created by its sixth grade students, after a Jewish staffer took offense at the content and filed a complaint with Fairview Superintendent Louis DeLisio.

The Lincoln School students created a series of posters in response to Lois Lowry’s classic Holocaust novel Number the Stars, which tells the story of a friendship between two Danish girls—one Jewish, one Christian—during World War Two. The offending poster featured “a swastika interlocked with the Star of David, red droplets on the Israeli flag that appear to be blood, photographs of Jewish children with Xs through their faces, magazine cut-outs of a number of prohibited foods.” It’s not exactly a sophisticated or historically accurate response, but it is sincere and well-intentioned—so, pretty much what you’d expect from a group of sixth graders.

The staff member, who is not a full-time employee of the district, spoke to NJ.com on the condition of anonymity, because she was concerned that her complaint might lead to her being “targeted” at work. She said that the poster had been hung in a hallway that many students passed, without any contextualizing information. “It’s highly offensive to anybody, especially someone who is Jewish and whose family members were survivors of the Holocaust.”

Principal Lea Turro, who initially heard the complaint, informed the staffer that the poster would not be removed until Wednesday, when the curriculum was scheduled to change. DeLisio made the decision to remove the poster on Tuesday, after speaking with all the relevant parties.

“I run across this every once in a while, where one sector of our population is offended, and we always try to compromise,” he told NJ.com. “We’re not trying to offend anyone… my true feeling is they (the students) did not have any ill-intention with this poster… I think it’s a learning process for everyone.”

Do you think the school was right to remove the poster?

(Image: NJ.com)

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Beyonce took a break from her rigorous European tour schedule to visit the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam today. Judging by the photos posted to her Instagram account, it was an appropriately sombre affair, and no embarrassing Justin Bieber-esque gaffes were committed.

The Internet immediately broke into a frenzy of praise and analysis, the general tenor of which was: “Stars, they’re just like us: they visit Holocaust museums and feel sad!” This might seem like an absurd thing to Tweet about (and even sillier to blog about), but the cultural significance of the moment runs deeper than a “like” or two (or in this case, 648,000 Instagram “hearts”): millions of young people—many of whom might have only a superficial knowledge of the Holocaust—follow Beyonce on social media, and I’m guessing at least a few thousand of them will be curious enough to pick up a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank after seeing these photos. That can only be a good thing.

Writes Marc Tracy over at The New Republic:

As we scrolled through our Instagram feeds, past selfies and cat pictures, we were jarred to come across the world’s most famous pop star mugging with the iconic black-haired murdered Jewish girl. The Holocaust is jarring, and it serves us well to be jarred anew by it every so often. This picture allows us to recover our sense of wonder at its enormity and awfulness. Good for Beyoncé for putting us in that place.

Queen Bey, you’re all class.

Related: Beyonce Could Be Coming to Israel in June

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