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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
October 21, 2021     Shelton Mason County Journal
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October 21, 2021
 
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Page A—4 Shelton-Mason Journal Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021 32.33%“ dOrtWSQN EDITOR’S CHAIR Imagine a crisp, cool fall morning, much like this one. Blue skies mingle with a patchwork of clouds, a slight breeze stirs the air. In the streets, families gather. It’s the first week of Sep- tember 1942. The Lodz Ghet- to, created after the German invasion of Poland, is home to more than 200,000 Polish Jews. In the morning stillness, dread fills the air. Jewish parents are or- dered to turn over all chil- dren under 10 and all adults over 65. V Within a week, more than 15,000 children will have been taken from their families. Some were killed in mobile gas chambers, others were shot. Many of the children and the elderly were taken to the Chelmno extermina- tion camp, where they were stripped of their clothing before being told they were being taken to showers to be bathed and disinfected. Instead, they were herded into mobile vans and gassed to death. More than 150,000 people were murdered at Chelmno. At Auschwitz, the larg— est and most notorious of the Nazi death camps, the mur- der process had a factory-like precision. , Jews were stripped of their clothes and sent into one of four chambers to be gassed. Two of the chambers were filled with 1,000 'people at a time. After they were killed with a gas called Zyklon B, the bodies were removed. Women’s hair was cut off, jewelry and dental work was Station-momentum lloumal usps 492-800 The Shelton-Mason County Jour- Publisher: John Lester Front office: nal is a member of the Wash- ‘ Dave Pierik, Office Administrator peg-MASTER; nd address changes to SheltonMason ington Newspaper Publishers Advertising: Karen Hranac, Customer Service ‘ Cpunty Journal, .0. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584. Association Theresa Murray, Ad Representative D I e ivery: Published weekly by the Shelton-Meson County Journal SUBSCRIPTION RATES: N9W3r°°m= J0“ Garza $62 per year ($43 for six months) Justin Johnson, Editor David Olson at 227 W. Cota St,. Shelton, Washington. Mailing address: PO. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584 ‘ Telephone: 360-426-4412 Website: ‘www.masoncounty.com removed before the bodies were moved to crematoriums to be burned. Bodies turned to ash, float- ing from chimneys. Bones that wouldn’t burn were ground to powder. More than a million lives were erased at Auschwitz. Now flash forward to Oct. 12, 2021. The place is a twice- monthly meeting of the Shel- ton School District school board. A discussion regarding Gov. Jay Inslee’s requirement that state employees, includ- ing K—12 school teachers and staff, ensues. Sandy Tarzwell, repre- senting Shelton’s District No. 1, speaks: “Some people say it (the vaccination mandate) is for the public good. I don’t nec- essarily believe that public good should triumph individ- ual rights. The Germans used ‘public good’ to exterminate six million Jews.” In that sentence, Tarzwell compared people taking a l Periodicals postage paid in Shelton, Washington. Owned and published by for Mason County addresses and $75 per year ($55 for six months) outside of Mason County. proven, life-saving vaccine to the horrors of the Holocaust. It’s hard to imagine some- one being more willfully offensive. And let’s be clear, she knew what she was saying. Tarzwell has been on the Shelton School District board since 2014. She’s educated and has run in political cir— cles long enough to know that what she said was explosive and how it would be received. Furthermore, it wasn’t just an off-hand comment made in private. Tarzwell said it in the middle of a public school board meeting. Tarzwell’s comments were a heinous, bankrupt attempt to score cheap partisan politi- cal points at the expense of the well-being of children at- tending Shelton schools. Many others disagree with iInslee’s mandate and have done so without tying it to one of the darkest times in history. No one is holding a gun to anyone’s head, forcing them to inject the vaccine or be Matt Baide, Reporter Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter Shelton-Mason County Journal, Inc. Gordon Weeks, Reporter Kirk Ericson, Columnist/ Proofreader a; Children line up in to Lo'dz Ghetto for deportation to the Chetmno death camp in September 1942. Public domain photo executed. As of today, the Pfizer/ BioNTech vaccine is fiilly ap- proved by the Food and Drug \ Administration. It'is not, as many of those who choose not to receive it say, an ex- perimental vaccine. It’s gone through the same rigorous safety protocols as hundreds of thousands of other medi- cines have. More importantly, it’s still a choice to receive it or not. Making a vaccine a condition of employment for certain jobs is not forcing anyone to take it. It certainly doesn’t remote ly compare to the Holocaust, as Sandy Tarzwell did in her detestable comments. It’s possible that like too many others, Tarzwell has spent too much time reading social media posts, exposing her to people that repeat this kind of nonsense daily to the point where it doesn’t feel weird or inappropriate to her. Sadly, we know too many people who are mired in the ‘sludge of misinformation that Niel Challstrom Composing room: Kim Fowler, Advertising Design marinates online. I Regardless of her reasons, as a member of the very group charged with ensur- ing the education, health and safety of Shelton’s students, Tarzwell’s comments should disqualify her from the school board going forward. , As an educational deci- sion-maker, Tarzwell has abdicated her duty to the students and families she serves. She is unfit to lead. Tarzwell owes our com- munity a sincere, unscripted apology. She also owes an expla- nation for her comments. As such, I invite Tarzwell to respond, to me and to her community in this space next week. It will run unedited. Anything less allows her shameful comments to stain our schools and the reputa- tion’of our community. I Justin Johnson is the editor of the SheltOn-Mason County Journal. He can be reached by email at justin@ masoncounty.c0m. Creative Director: Llo'yd Mullen All regular editorial, advertising ' and legal deadlines are 5 pm. the Monday prior to publication. To submit a letter to the editor, email editor@masoncounty.com. Linda Frizzell, Advertising Design