A New Jersey middle school has recalled its yearbook after a photo of Adolf Hitler snuck into the student baby photos section.
The photo shows Hitler when he was a baby and prompted a sorrowful response from the East Brook Middle School principal.
“Earlier today, after students had already received their yearbooks, we learned that the baby pictures section of the yearbook contained an image that was later identified as an infant photograph of Adolf Hitler,” writes Ryan Aupperlee to school families on June 25.
“We immediately collected the yearbooks so the image would not remain in circulation. I want to be direct with you: the presence of this image is unacceptable. Even if the image was not immediately recognizable to those paging through the book, its inclusion in an official school publication is a severe breach of our values.”
Aupperlee adds that Hitler stood for “hatred, antisemitism, and the horrors of the Holocaust,” citing the Nazi regime’s murder of six million Jews.
“An image of him has no place in a yearbook created for our students. It does not reflect who we are or what East Brook stands for, and we condemn its inclusion without reservation,” the principal writes.
A member of the Jewish Federation of New Jersey tells ABC 7 that he is “horrified once again by what’s going on in our society.”
“We have lost all sensitivity,” he continues. “And lost all respect for genocide and things that have happened in the past.”
The school is unclear on just how the photo of baby Hitler was included, but information has been shared with the local prosecutor’s office, which is now also investigating.
“Why would they do it? The influence behind why they would do it, and how it got past the eyeball test?” adds the representative of the Jewish Federation of New Jersey. “Although, in all fairness, it might be hard to identify the picture if you don’t know that picture.”
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