Leave the “Auschwitz Selfie” Girl Alone

This child should be left alone. I remember on the morning of September 11, 2001, I was teaching in a private school and all the kids and staff were together watching the terrible story unfolding on TV. A couple of young girls were ignoring the television, and were talking and giggling together. My first impulse was to feel angry, and to tell them to stop talking and be more respectful. But then I realized that these kids were precisely WHY the horror we were witnessing had to be stopped. The whole reason is so that young kids like these can feel safe, and can laugh, and have fun, and enjoy their lives and their friendships. They will have plenty of time to be adults dealing with responsibilities and tragedies. The girl in this photo was commemorating an important moment in her life, and remembering the father she lost. She took a picture, and as we are always told to to do when we take a picture, she smiled. She was not going out of her way to be disrespectful. And we shouldn’t be disrespectful toward her. The ‘adults’ (and I use the word very, very reluctantly) who have tweeted unkind things to her or about her should hang their heads in shame.