Andover High Pulls 2018 Class Yearbooks After Nazi Quote Printed in Error

Andover High Principal Philip Conrad said the unattributed quote “does not have a home in our yearbook, school, or community.” (File photograph)

Andover High School officials have halted distribution of senior class yearbooks after a member of the 2018 graduating class included a Nazi-era quote that was printed by mistake.

In a letter to parents this week, Principal Philip Conrad expressed regret and assured families such hate speech has no place in the school community.

“Despite our careful vetting process, a senior quote made it to publication that does not have a home in our yearbook, our school, or our community,” said Conrad of the unattributed quote that is generally attributed to either Adolph Hitler or Joseph Goebbels about “propagating lies.”

Conrad said school officials were alerted to the quote after the yearbook had been distributed to a small group of students. The school has pulled sales of the yearbook until the page can be corrected by the publisher. Those already in possession of the class keepsake may return it to be swapped out for an updated version.

Upon investigation, the student appeared to access the quote from a source that did not identify the author and “used it without any knowledge of where it came from or the background with which it is associated,” said Conrad.

Added the principal: “I am satisfied that he sincerely regrets his choice.”

The incident comes six months after three swastikas were drawn on a high school desk in the classroom of a Jewish teacher. The anti-Semitic symbols were discovered just hours before the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, police said.