A 13-year-old boy charged with planning a mass shooting at an Ohio synagogue has been ordered to write a book report on a Swiss diplomat who saved Jewish people in WW2.
The teenager, who has not been named due to his age, was charged with two misdemeanour counts after making a detailed plan to shoot members of Temple Israel in the city of Canton.
The sheriff’s department learned of the boy’s plan on September 1 after he shared it on Discord.
Family Court Judge Jim James gave him a year of probation and ordered him to read a book and then write a report about Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz, who saved more than 62,000 Hungarian Jews during WW2.
The boy pleaded "true," the juvenile equivalent of guilty, to both counts.
Yad Vashem recognised Lutz among the “Righteous Among the Nations” on March 24, 1964. It stated the diplomat risked his life and “brought thousands of Hungarian Jews under Swiss protection, thus saving them from deportations to Nazi death camps.”
David Pressman, US ambassador to Hungary, praised Lutz on Sept. 8, 2022, during a US Embassy reception in his honour.
“It is impossible for the human brain to comprehend the impact of Lutz’s efforts. How many artists would never have existed if he had not saved their father? How many doctors would not have been born if Lutz had not saved their grandmother? How many farmers, scientists, teachers, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers would have been lost to history without the efforts of this one individual?
“A single life can ripple through time like a pebble dropped in a lake. One single life can change everything. And Carl Lutz saved thousands. He changed the world in ways we will never understand. We can’t understand.”
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