There was nothing innocent about the Jews vs. Nazis drinking game played by Princeton High School students.
Hogan's Heroes aside, there's nothing remotely humorous about the systematic Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews. Adolf Hitler's single-minded determination to create an empire free of Jews marks one of the lowest periods in the history of humankind.
To turn that genocide into an adolescent drinking game borders on the obscene.
It must have struck a group of Princeton High School students as the epitome of cool to play "Jews vs. Nazis," a bizarre twist on beer pong that features beer cups arranged in a Star of David on one side of the table and in a swastika on the other.
In the game, a variation on a classic that college students have been playing for generations, players identifying as Jews are allowed to "Anne Frank," or hide, one of their cups. Their opponents, the Nazis, can "Auschwitz" the others, requiring one to sit out a round.
The idea of underage drinking is alarming enough, though it comes as no particular surprise. But these teenagers are taking matters to a whole new level, with a mindless game clearly offensive to Jews and anyone else who remembers or has learned about Hitler's murderous agenda.
Police investigate beer pong game
And here's where things get even more convoluted. A student who brought the game to the attention of her guidance counselor after photos of the game appeared on online has become an object of scorn and derision among her fellow students.
Jessica Ponder, a 17-year-old junior at the school, should be applauded, not demeaned, for reporting an activity she found deeply disturbing.
Thankfully, not all the reaction was negative.
"A couple of people came up to me using profanities, but a lot of people were very kind and I'd say appreciative of what I did," Ponder told Keith Brown of NJ Advance Media. "Someone needed to show what exactly is going on when no one's paying attention."
It's encouraging that school Superintendent Steve Cochrane heard the wake-up call, and that his district has begun to use it as a teaching opportunity.
For more than four decades, New Jersey has been at the forefront of Holocaust education, with a full K-12 curriculum of age-appropriate lessons and seminars. If there was any doubt that such a curriculum is necessary, the popularity of the so-called Holocaust Pong or Alcoholocaust should put it to rest decisively.
Harmless fun? Not when blatant anti-Semitism is swallowed with every gulp of beer.