A partial whitewash for Stuyvesant High School authorities, accused of distributing a Nazi pamphlet among the students, was the result of an investigation yesterday by the Board of Education, headed by Superintendent of Schools Dr. Harold G. Campbell.
According to a statement to the Jewish Daily Bulletin from Dr. Campbell’s office, a single copy of the pamphlet. “German Youth in a Changing World,” containing strong pro-Nazi propaganda, was mailed by some unknown person to the high school at 345 East Fifteenth street. The pamphlet was then referred to the librarian of the school, who stamped it without looking it over, and placed it among other books on German subjects, it was explained.
Only six students had asked for the brochure, the investigators discovered, and while the last of the students was reading it, some adult member of the family saw it and complained.
Protests were made to the Board of Education by B. Charney Vladeck, manager of the Jewish Daily Forward, who charged it with charged it with ‘conniving at Nazi propaganda,” and described the official use of the booklet as a “crime.” Mr. Vladeck, who had the copy of the pamphlet in his possession, returned it to the high school, and it was yesterday handed over to Louis S. Posner, member of the Soard of Education.
Ernest R. von Nardroff, principal of Stuyvesant High School, refused to make any statement to the Bulletin further than to repeat what he had said Wednesday: “I have nothing to say.”
Students at the school were inclined to minimize the importance of the pamphlet, many of them never having heard of it. They assured a Bulletin reporter that there was no semblance of anti-Semitism at the school, either in the student body or among the faculty.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
