'HEIL NO!': New Jersey school recalls yearbooks after Hitler baby photo discovered

CALGARY — A New Jersey middle school has confiscated student yearbooks and launched an investigation after administrators discovered a photograph of Adolf Hitler had been included in the publication’s baby photos section.According to the New York Post, students at East Brook Middle School in Paramus had already received their yearbooks when school officials learned one of the baby photographs was later identified as an image of Hitler as an infant.Principal Ryan Aupperlee informed families of the discovery in a June 25 letter, saying the school acted immediately to remove the books from circulation.“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,” Aupperlee wrote in the letter, which was obtained by NJ.com.School officials collected the yearbooks and notified law enforcement, with Aupperlee describing the incident as a serious violation of the school's standards.“I want to be direct with you: the presence of this image is unacceptable,” he wrote. “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 said Hitler's association with antisemitism, hatred and the Holocaust made the image particularly offensive.“Adolf Hitler represents hatred, antisemitism, and the horrors of the Holocaust, including the murder of six million Jews,” he wrote.“An image of him has no place in a yearbook created for our students.”The school is now working to produce a corrected edition of the yearbook and has not yet announced what will happen to copies that were already distributed and signed by students and staff.“Thank you for your patience, understanding, and trust as we work to make this right,” Aupperlee wrote.“We remain committed to ensuring that our school reflects the values of respect, inclusion, and dignity for every member of our community.”It remains unclear how the image made its way into the publication, whether a student submitted it intentionally, or how administrators ultimately determined the photograph depicted Hitler.The incident is the latest in a series of yearbook controversies involving references to the Third Reich's leader.In 2021, a Connecticut high school student was charged with two felony counts of third-degree computer crime after allegedly altering yearbook entries to include quotes attributed to Hitler, including one falsely attributed to George Floyd.In another case, a high school in Andover pulled its yearbook before publication after administrators discovered a student had included a quotation attributed to Hitler or Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels beneath his photograph.

'HEIL NO!': New Jersey school recalls yearbooks after Hitler baby photo discovered

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