She had a room full of students — but a complete lack of class.
A Catholic school teacher in Brazil is being investigated after shocking footage emerged of her performing a Nazi salute in front of her class. A clip of the sordid incident currently boasts more than 1.9 million views on Twitter.
“It was certainly a thoughtless act she made, reckless, a mistake,” Sister Edites Bet, director of the Colégio Sagrada Família in Ponta Grossa, Paraná, told Jam Press in a statement.
The appalling clip shows the unnamed educator performing a sieg heil — a Nazi salute which is German for “hail victory” — in front of her students while wearing a Brazilian national flag top and alleged badges in support of right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro. (Former president of Brazil Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva won a narrow victory over Bolsonaro in the first round of voting in the Oct. 2 presidential election, but because neither candidate garnered more than 50% of the votes, there will be a runoff on Oct. 30.)
All the while, her pupils can be heard guffawing uproariously in the background.
It’s unclear why the teacher, who has taught at the institute for more than a decade, made the obscene gesture. However, prosecutors reportedly received multiple complaints over the incident, while the school has taken “internal” measures against the teacher — although they didn’t detail the nature of the consequences.
The institution also condemned her actions in a statement, writing: “Out of respect for our school community, parents, students and everyone who has an interest in what happened to one of our teachers from the 3rd grade of high school, we state that we do not condone or agree with the teacher’s position.”
Brazil’s Jewish organizations found the incident especially concerning given a nationwide spike in neo-Nazi activity of late. The Brazil-Israel Institute wrote that the behavior “exemplifies the warnings that neo-Nazi incidents have increased in Brazil in recent years, whether against Jews or other groups, such as black people and the LGBTQIA+ community,” Jam Press reported.
In a similarly sordid incident closer to home, a Pennsylvania teacher got into hot water in 2018 after it was revealed that he moonlighted as a Nazi-themed wrestler called Blitzkrieg the German Juggernaut at a local show.
However, the controversial cosplayer was allowed to keep his job on the grounds that he hadn’t violated school policy.