A photo of boys from Baraboo high school went viral but while some want the teenagers to apologise others say they are being unfairly victimised

Eva Huffaker hoped for an apology. What she got was another Sieg Heil.

When the 15-year-old Jewish student at Baraboo high school first saw the now notorious prom night photograph of her fellow students with their arms raised stiffly in a Nazi salute, she picked out the faces she recognised.

“I didn’t really believe it when I first saw it. It took a while to sink in that I knew some of the people in the photo and what they were doing and how offensive and hateful that gesture is. It was very shocking and terrifying,” said Huffaker.

The picture’s sweep of social media drew a torrent of denunciations and abuse from around the country against the young men, their teachers and Baraboo officials, including death threats. But the rural Wisconsin city is grappling with a more complex response that has opened a divide over how to see the actions of the teenagers in the photo – a question framed by some as being with or against the students.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A school district in Wisconsin said the first amendment prevented it from punishing students in this picture, in which many are making what appears to be a Nazi salute. Photograph: Peter Gust

Amid a series of community meetings, some in Baraboo are pressing for a collective apology from the boys even if it is accompanied by an acceptance that their salutes were more a prank than an endorsement of fascism. Others regard them as victims subject to a form of lynching with their futures tarnished by accusations of sympathy for white supremacy.

“I can’t imagine being a 17-year-old and having the world looking upon you as the personification of evil,” said Keri Olson, one of the organisers of a series of meetings in Baraboo to consider what to make of the photographs and how to react. “This is a community of 12,000 that all of a sudden has been cast in this light around the world. How do you prepare for that? How do you respond to that? It’s been a state of crisis here.”

The divide is reflected at the high school itself. Some of the 60 students in the picture have apologised directly to Huffaker. A couple came to her house to say sorry to her family too. But Huffaker said they are the minority and that within the school, the teenagers in the photo are more often seen as the victims of the backlash.

“A lot of students have been saying, ‘It’s just a joke, they didn’t mean it. This is being taken out of proportion and everyone just needs to calm down and just let it go.’ Which is really upsetting to me because people think that it’s OK just because they didn’t mean it. There are students who realise that it wasn’t OK but on the whole a lot of people are just trying to dismiss it,” she said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Eva Huffaker, 15, a student at Baraboo high school: ‘People think that it’s OK just because they didn’t mean it.’ Photograph: Lauren Justice/The Guardian

Huffaker said some students even appeared to endorse the photo after it was posted on social media with the hashtag #barabooproud.

“There were students who immediately after the picture came out went around saying ‘We’re Baraboo proud’, kind of implying that they’re not against this. And there have been antisemitic comments,” she said. “There was an incident where a kid looked at me and he did the white supremacy symbol and then he stood up and did the Sieg Heil.”

The origins of the photograph remain debated and disputed even by those who were there. The photographer was a parent, Pete Gust, whose son is in the picture. Gust said he asked the students to wave and that he was surprised when they raised their arms in a fascist salute. Some parents were upset. One woman shouted to her son to put his arm down.

The photo was taken in May but only became public when Gust put it on his website in November for reasons he has so far declined to explain despite demands from furious parents to know why he thought that was a good idea.

Local officials were swift to condemn the picture. The district schools administrator, Lori Mueller, criticised the students for “making extremely inappropriate gestures”, said the photo “is not reflective of the educational values and beliefs” of Baraboo schools, and promised to “pursue any and all appropriate actions, including legal”. The police chief announced an investigation.

That prompted Pastor Dan Gunderson of Walnut Hill Bible church, who knows some of the students and their parents from services and coaching a wrestling team, to come to the boys’ defence.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pastor Dan Gunderson inside Walnut Hill Bible church in Baraboo. Gunderson has supported the boys in the photo. Photograph: Lauren Justice/The Guardian

“It felt like our community, in order to prove that’s not our community, felt it necessary to say those voices don’t represent us. In that moment it felt like they were turning on the boys,” he said.

The pastor challenged Mueller, telling her she was well-intentioned but mistaken and had “thrown the boys under the bus” by playing into the hands of people he accused of pursuing a wider political agenda by piling responsibility for rising extremism in the US on to a group of teenagers.

“There’s a desire to have a narrative of small-town America being impacted by the presidency of Donald Trump and neo-Nazism and antisemitism and white supremacy,” he said.

Gunderson wrote a Facebook posting under the heading “I Stand with Our Baraboo Boys” which was quickly read across the city and came to mark out the divisions.

The pastor thinks it is the boys who are owed an apology. He said that from conversations with those involved he believes the students were weary of the photo shoot and restless at being told by Gust to make different poses.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The interior of Walnut Hill Bible church, a nondenominational church in Baraboo. Photograph: Lauren Justice/The Guardian

“One boy said very specifically, ‘I was making fun of the photographer. I was kind of mocking his request for us to do this’,” he said.

But not all. A couple of students raised a fist, resistance-style. Several others kept their arms down including one who looks aghast. Some are clearly waving. One of the students, Jordan Blue, stands slightly apart on the far side of the back row. He said that some of the students deliberately raised their arms in a Nazi salute but did it as a joke. He also said that is not a justification.

Gunderson said the students are being accused of an intent they did not have.

“These boys are branded racists when they’re not. This branding isn’t just for now. In just a snapshot they are completely redefined and their futures are in jeopardy. Some of these boys come from extremely liberal homes. Parents – tough, tough guys – are coming to me with tears saying, ‘What’s going to happen to my son coming out of this?’” said Gunderson. “Nobody cares to hear it but I think these boys feel like they survived something. They’re traumatised. They’re scared.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marcy Huffaker, the mother of Eva Huffaker, a student at Baraboo high school. Photograph: Lauren Justice/The Guardian

The social media clamour called for the young men to be suspended or expelled from school. The district ruled that out because the photo was not taken on school property and the actions are protected by first amendment rights. In any case few in the city want the teenagers to face any more punishment than they have already suffered from public vilification.

Eva Huffaker’s mother, Marcy, thinks the boys made a stupid mistake.

“I think it comes from not thinking, not knowing. I have teenage boys. I don’t want them to be punished for the rest of their lives for being stupid. But there’s a lot of people who think this isn’t a big deal,” she said.

Marcy Huffaker sees Gunderson’s framing of the issue as support or otherwise for the young men in the photograph as avoiding the consequences of their actions.

“It felt to us like you’re either with the boys, and you want to protect the boys, or you’re against the boys,” she said. “But I’m not sure it really matters what their intentions were at this point because it’s a fact of that photo that has done such hurt.”

As Baraboo struggles to find a response, it has also got a closer look at itself.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Sauk county courthouse in downtown Baraboo, where the controversial photo was taken. Photograph: Lauren Justice/The Guardian

Olson said the controversy has been a shock to a city that regards itself as liberal and tolerant. Sixty percent of its votes went to the Democrats running for state governor and US senator in November’s elections.

“Smithsonian magazine named Baraboo the fourth-best small town to visit in America. So when you have that mindset that, wow, we must be a pretty great community, we have a lot to celebrate, but then all of a sudden this happens and the world sees Baraboo in a very different light we need to take something that feels very powerful and we need to do good with it,” she said.

I feel like we are actually pretty desensitised because it’s so natural for our generation to make that homophobic or racist comment Eva Huffaker

Yet community meetings have revealed to residents that the city is not as tolerant as they think it is. Black, gay and transgender residents have spoken up about discrimination and marginalisation. That includes some students at the high school.

Eva Huffaker said she is not surprised.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Customers enjoy lunch at Little Village Cafe on 4th Avenue in downtown Baraboo. The controversy has shaken the town’s self-image as liberal and tolerant. Photograph: Lauren Justice/The Guardian

“There’s definitely a lot of racism in the school. There is also a lot of homophobia,” she said. “There’s a certain portion of students who are very aware of these things and definitely they call it out when they see it. But on the whole I feel like we are actually pretty desensitised to a lot of these topics because it’s so natural for our generation to make that homophobic comment or that racist comment. And because it happens so much I feel like people don’t really understand how hurtful and hateful those comments actually are.”

The school district announced 13 “educational steps” including students visiting the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie and speakers about the Nazi genocide of the Jews at schools. One resident suggested Baraboo twinning with a German town near a former concentration camp. The school is also planning a greater focus on social justice.

Olson put together an event with a former white supremacist and a man whose father was killed in a massacre at a Wisconsin Sikh temple in 2012.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The community in Baraboo has handed out signs like this one, seen in a downtown storefront, that says ‘Reject Hate, Unite in Love’. Photograph: Lauren Justice/The Guardian

But for the Huffakers and others, Baraboo will not get to grips with the true impact of its sons raising their arms in a Hitler salute, and laughing at it, until an apology is forthcoming.

Baraboo brought in a rabbi, Laurie Zimmerman, from the state capital, Madison, who pressed the Jewish concept of restorative justice that would require the boys to acknowledge the harm they have done and make amends.

“This concept of teshuvah carries with it the recognition that we all make mistakes. We all do things we wish we hadn’t done,” she said.

But lawyers are advising the teenagers and their families that in light of the police investigation and general climate they should not make any public statement and certainly not apologise.

Marcy Huffaker said some of the boys have come to her house to say sorry to her family.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A person walks down a sidewalk on Oak Street in downtown Baraboo during a snowfall on 31 December 2018. Photograph: Lauren Justice/The Guardian

“It’s been awkward and uncomfortable,” she said. “There’s lots of kids that we know and we’re friends with their families. The kids that have come to talk to us have realised what a terrible thing that was. Some said there was no intention of doing the Heil Hitler salute. Others have said differently.”

Eva Huffaker is uncertain about how she feels about the students whose lives are likely to be defined by that one moment captured by the camera.

“We were at a community gathering and someone was comparing them to sexual assault victims and Parkland shooter victims. That did not seem right. I understand that they have gotten threats for their lives and they are a victim in that sense. And their whole futures are basically affected by this. But they got themselves into this,” she said.

“While they may not know the full effect of how hurtful that gesture is, they know who used it. They know, and a majority of the people in the picture still chose to do it.”