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School Head to Investigate Vladeck Charge

May 4, 1934
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
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A promise of a really thorough investigation into the charges hurled by B.C. Vladeck, chairman of the Jewish Labor Committee, that students at Stuyvesant High School were required to read Nazi pamphlets printed in Germany was made yesterday by the Board of Education following a meeting between Vladeck and Dr. Jacob Greenberg, of the board.

The investigation, which will be headed by Dr. Harold G. Campbell, superintendent of schools, will endeavor to answer two questions propounded by Vladeck:

1. How did the booklet get into the library at the high school?

2. Why did the children ask for the pamphlet, which was entitled “German Youth in a Changing World?”

Dr. Greenberg told the Jewish Daily Bulletin that definite answers to these questions will be made by the middle of next week.

An investigation made by the board last week resulted in a virtual whitewash of the officials at the high school. It was explained that some unknown person had mailed the pamphlet to the school, and it was sent down to the library and stamped “Property of Stuyvesant High School” without any one having read it.

Vladeck had asserted that at least six students were known to have read the pamphlet, which he characterized as “designed to poison the young mind of New York.” Librarians at the school maintained that the booklet was not on the shelves and that any pupils reading it had done so without permission from the library desk.

Another development from the charges made by Vladeck was the announcement that Dr. Louis Posner, member of the Board of Education, had issued a suggestion to all high school principals that any pro-Nazi literature found in their schools be immediately confiscated. This suggestion, it was admitted, amounted to an order, although no other pamphlets had been found in any other schools, according to officials at the Department of Education.

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