Anti-semitic graffiti on the wall of Birch Cliff Public School.
Toronto Police have launched an investigation after antisemitic graffiti was discovered etched on an exterior wall of Birch Cliff Public School.
Photos of the graffiti posted to the Birch Cliff Community Facebook Group on Tuesday night show a swastika and the phrase “Heil Hitler”.
Toronto Police officers arrived at the school at 7:30 am Wednesday to take photographs of the graffiti near the kindergarten door at the north side of the school, according to Shari Schwartz-Maltz, media relations manager for the Toronto District School Board (TDSB).
The graffiti was then immediately removed.
Schwartz-Maltz said school board security officials are now reviewing footage from a video camera positioned in the parking lot and will be notifying police if they see anything relevant.
“It’s extremely upsetting,” Schwartz-Maltz said in an interview with Birch Cliff News. “The swastika is a universal symbol of hate, not just the hate targeted at Jews, the hate targeted at homosexuals or anyone who wasn’t the German standard of pure. It’s a symbol of hate.”
It’s not known at this point whether students from the school or other young people were involved in the incident.
Toronto Police Media Relations Officer, Caroline de Kloet, said officers are currently treating it as a mischief investigation. De Kloet said that if a criminal offence such as mischief is believed to have been motivated by bias, prejudice or hate, the officer in charge will consult with the Crown.
Schwartz-Maltz confirmed that this is the second time in the last few weeks that the school has been defaced by Nazi symbols.
Several weeks ago, parents found a swastika engraved on a door handle and it was brought to the attention of Principal Heather Cairns.
Schwartz-Maltz said the incident was reported to the TDSB through a relatively new internal portal for disclosing racism in Toronto schools.
It was not, however, reported to police because the swastika was small and it had been removed immediately.
When asked whether all incidents of hate should be investigated, no matter how big or small, Schwartz-Maltz said, “You’re right.”
“This is something that’s a learning curve for many of our principals, who are only human. And when you see something that’s relatively small, you just want it away. All these procedures that I’m talking about, this process of reporting into our portal, are relatively new, and our principals are still learning. And I think the more we do this, and more we act immediately, our principals will understand that even a small sign of hate is too big a sign of hate,” Schwartz-Maltz said.
Bernie Farber, Chair of the Canadian AntiHate Network, said that scratchings of swastikas and “Heil Hitler” are usually done by individuals for shock value as opposed to neo-Nazi groups trying to radicalize young people. But he said there’s a danger in incrementalism because it gives support to haters.
“You don’t pay attention, and it goes from bad to worse,” Farber said. “Yes, it could be just kids. I don’t doubt that for a moment. But at the same time, children have to learn that there are consequences for actions. And if you break the law, and there are laws against hate, that this isn’t just a walk in the park, that these are serious crimes that have led to actual murder.”
Schwartz-Maltz, who is also Chair of the TDSB Jewish Heritage Committee, said the board will bring programming into Birch Cliff PS that has been used at other schools that have dealt with antisemitic racism.
The programming will target students in grades 6 – 8, to address why symbols that appeared on the outside of the school are hurtful and hateful.
“This board…does a lot of proactive work inside schools with young children on anti-hate, anti-oppression, anti-racism, antisemitism. So it’s not it’s not like we just talk about it. We brought Holocaust survivors in, we read books about it, we teach empathy, we teach compassion. Of course, we don’t know who did this. It could be anybody at this point, but it’s just upsetting because schools are places where we are communities and we try to teach kids the beauty of being together, not being different,” Schwartz-Maltz said.
Schwartz-Maltz said she was encouraged by the sheer number of phone calls and emails that the principal received from parents today because it shows her that the community really cares about fighting hate.
“I’m really proud to be standing here at the school today. Not every community around the GTA has such a profound reaction to an incident like this. That says to me to parents and people that live here, really care that the kids understand why those symbols are so hurtful and hateful,” Schwartz-Maltz said.
