School apologises for pupils’ Nazi salute

KINGSWAY High School headmaster Geoff Harrison has apologised on the school’s Facebook fan page after a group of pupils performed a Nazi salute outside the Durban Holocaust Centre and posted it online on Wednesday.

The school usually visits the centre for pupils to “learn from the mistakes of the past”, the principal said.

In a statement published on the school’s fan page, Love Kingsway High, Harrison said, “Kingsway apologises unreservedly for the most insensitive photo posted on Facebook.

“The atrocities committed against the Jews, in particular, and the loss of life and destruction caused throughout Europe can only give rise to repulsion with anything associated with the Nazi.

“I believe it is also important that 13 or 14yearolds do not know the significance of a salute, and their generation are only now being exposed to the history of the Second World War and Fascism. The learners’ behaviour was therefore more typical of youthful insensitivity than a support for Nazism.” Harrison urged all those who have not visited the Durban Holocaust Centre to do so.

“It goes without saying that the unfortunate gesture does not fit in with the ethos and philosophy of the school, as you have seen portrayed by other Facebook posts over the years.”

Facebook user Ashleigh Darné commented on Harrison’s statement, saying, “I will always respect and love Kingsway High and agree completely with what you have said. While the photo was extremely insensitive, I don’t feel it was done out of any malicious intent. We were all once teenagers who did things, in hindsight, we probably shouldn’t have done.”

East Coast Radio quoted the centre’s director, Mary Kluk, saying the the south Durban school visits them annually as part of their history curriculum. She said while the photograph is inappropriate, she believes it is more a reflection of youthful insensitivity than a malicious attempt to be offensive.

— Witness Reporter. A R1,75 MILLION beach house in Stilbaai in the Cape is part of the Hawks’ fraud investigation into the Pippie se Gesiggie fund.

The house was bought for cash in August 2012 and registered in the name of Erwin Kruger, the little burn victim’s father.

Sister paper Beeld learnt reliably that the purchase of the house, eight months after Pippie suffered critical burns, forms part of the Hawks’ investigation into how money donated for her treatment was spent.

Erwin Kruger acknowledged last week that the fund was never registered as a nonprofit organisation (NPO), and that money raised was paid into his wife Anice’s personal savings account.

He declined to comment yesterday on the purchase of the house.

Lynne Zurnamer, a spokesperson for the Kruger family, told Huisgenoot magazine last September that the house was bought by Kruger’s father for his retirement.

“He put it in Erwin’s name with a clause stating that Erwin could not sell or occupy it before the deaths of his father and mother. After that, he could do as he pleased,” Zurnamer said.

Erwin is one of the directors of Pippie se Gesiggie (Pty) Ltd, a private company set up in 2012.

Gifts and donations were paid into Anice’s private account from January 2012, shortly after Pippie was burnt.

Erwin’s personal bank details have also been previously published on social media as an account into which donors could pay.

Anice, Erwin and Loesje Barnard, Anice’s mother, are the directors of the company. It is unclear how much money has been paid into the fundcompany.

Last August, Anice told Beeld there was between R3 and R4 million in the “fund”, but Erwin said last week there had never been more than R1,9 million.

In just two donations, Poppies vir Pippie (Dollies for Pippie) had raised R52 610 for Pippie se Gesiggie (Pty) Ltd by March 2012. Ride for Pippie, a group of cyclists who did the 94.7 cycle race to raise money, paid over R18 000.

After receiving a R20 000 donation, Anice wrote on Facebook: “… I’m sitting on my Pappa’s lap, no longer at his feet”.

In March, she wrote: “I could have got rich and taken every donation, instead I give and give”.

Last August, Zurnamer told eNCA news that Pippie se Gesiggie was a registered NPO.

The Social Development Department had already turned down an application to register the fund as a NPO last July.

However, it is still presented on its website as a NPO.

Zurnamer said an audit had to be completed by September, in order to comply with the law.

Now Zurnamer tells Beeld she was not aware at the time of the interview that the fund was not registered. “Why would you ask to see the documents if the lawyer confirms that it has been done?” she asked.

The Kruger family lawyer, Philip Taljaard, told Beeld yesterday that the company’s annual financial statement has been filed.

“It is a onepage document and it is just to say that the company still exists.”