Princeton Student Chastised by University President for Anti-semitism

A Princeton University honor student, who received the university’s “Freshman Honor Prize” only last Saturday in a ceremony on the campus attended by 1, 000 persons, was upbraided today by the president of Princeton, Dr. Robert A. Goheen, for an anti-Semitic attitude.

The student, Paul J. Ponomarenko, of The Bronx, whose parents are Russian and who was born in Poland, wrote a letter to the student newspaper, published two days before he was publicly honored, questioning the significance of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis, asserting that the Jewish “drive” to get non-Jews to believe 6, 000, 000 Jews had been murdered by the Nazis is only an “image” set up by Jews, and stating that Jews have advanced the story about the Warsaw Ghetto rebellion to counter fears that Jews would be called “cowards.”

“This fear,” he alleged, “is based on a deep-seated feeling of inferiority in physical conflict and military affairs that the Jews have always had.”

Dr. Goheen, writing to the student newspaper, stated that the Ponomarenko letter “patently speaks from blind prejudice and is utterly foreign both to the intellectual and moral ideals of the university. It is an old but sadly persistent fact that high intelligence and moral sensivity, intellect and wisdom, do not necessarily go together.”

The campus newspaper also printed 10 other letters on the issue raised by the student. All but one of the letters were critical of the honor student. Ponomarenko, who is not only an honor student but also manager of the varsity baseball team, has, however, not retracted. Instead, he said today: “I am repulsed that the suffering of the Jews has been so overplayed.”