US high school apologises for publishing Nazi quote in yearbook

Mihir Zaveri

‘Make the lie big, keep it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it’ is quote from Nazi propaganda chief Dr Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels served as Nazi Germany’s minister for propaganda from 1933 to 1945 ( Keystone/Getty Images )

A Massachusetts school is back in the spotlight following another brush with anti-semitism after it emerged a graduating student had included a Nazi quotation in its leavers’ yearbook.

The quote, which reads “Make the lie big, keep it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it,” is attributed to the Third Reich’s propaganda supremo, Dr Joseph Goebbels. The quote is not attributed in the yearbook, and appears in black text underneath the photo of the student, who has not been identified.

Despite being vetted by school staff, it was a student who alerted them to the quote’s Nazi provenance.

Hundreds of copies of the yearbook had been printed and distributed to students at Andover High School in Massachusetts before the school became aware of the problem and stopped selling the yearbook. The school is now offering to replace the page or cover the quote up with a sticker.

“We are appalled and angered that this quote was submitted, and I ask you to please accept my deepest apologies on behalf of our faculty, staff, and administration for the insertion of these words in the yearbook,” wrote school principal, Philip Conrad, in a letter to parents. “Quoting a racist dictator bent on genocide or his minister of propaganda has no place in our school or our community and it is deeply upsetting to all of us.”

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