'Shocking to see': Video shows Quebec students giving Nazi salute during class

A mother says her daughter's school north of Montreal failed to act when students were filmed giving a Hitler salute while playing a Nazi marching song in the classroom.

A video of the incident was posted on TikTok showing five Grade 7 students at École secondaire des Chutes in Rawdon, Que. standing on their chairs surrounded by other students while playing the song Erika on YouTube. The song was composed in the 1930s and was often played for German troops during the Second World War.

"I didn't believe what I was seeing at first because it is shocking to see something like that," said the mother of the student who recorded the incident.

"It was more shocking to think that the teacher was just walking around in the video, not addressing it in any way, shape or form."

The student who recorded the video and her mother spoke to CTV News on the condition that they not be identified out of fear of reprisal from others for speaking out.

In the 10-second video clip, a teacher can be seen at the front of the classroom. The short video clip does not show the teacher engaging with the students who are giving the salute and putting their fingers on their faces indicating a Hitler mustache.

The video was taken down from TikTok, according to the student who posted it. CTV News has viewed a copy of the video.

The student said her teacher is away for medical reasons and it was a substitute teacher who was in charge of the class on the day of the incident.

"She still has a duty to keep the class under control and she failed," the mother said. "This was a very specific, hateful display and she did nothing so that, to me, was very shocking."

Her daughter explained that she believed the students played the song to be "edgy."

"The teacher didn't really do anything to stop it," the student said, adding that a resource teacher only came to the class to complain about the noise.

The student said the laissez-faire approach to the students' behaviour goes beyond the classroom.

"Most of the boys do the Nazi salutes and sing the Erika song. And since there are two pianos in the school, some kids even play the tune on the piano," the student said.

The mother is speaking out to not only denounce what she saw, but to call out the teacher and the school for exercising poor judgment.

"It wasn't like this happened at lunch outside. Somebody told the teacher, she was there and she saw it. It shouldn't be up to me to tell the school. She saw, she was there," she said.

CTV News reached out to the Centre de services scolaire des Samares, which oversees the school, to respond to the concerns raised by the family.

In an email, a spokesperson said it "deplores" the incident depicted in the video.

"As soon as the administration was informed last week, the necessary measures were quickly taken with the students and the substitute teacher. Awareness has already been raised with the group in order to make them understand the content of the gesture and its meaning," the statement went on to say, without saying which measures were taken. 

The school would not comment on the measures due to privacy concerns, a school spokesperson said in an e-mail.

The Montreal-based Foundation for Genocide Education said incidents like this are not that rare.

Last year, in Toronto, a local school board reported three instances of antisemitism in one month, including two Grade 6 students who gave a Nazi salute to their Jewish teacher.

"There's no understanding of why this is hateful, what these gestures mean. The education is definitely lacking," said the foundation's director of communications, Marcy Bruck.

Marcy Bruck is the communications director for The Foundation for Genocide Education, which is based in Montreal. (CTV News)

The fact that the Montreal incident happened in front of a teacher was particularly "shameful," she said. 

"This could have been a teachable moment for the teacher had they been prepared to ask why are you doing this?" Bruck added. "Sadly, a lot of teachers are not even aware themselves of the gesture and if they are, they don't know how to address it."

With files from CTV News Montreal's Rob Lurie