The father of a New School Jewish female student whose Manhattan dormitory door was scrawled with swastikas on Saturday reported the incident to the NYPD, which launched an investigation. Police discovered swastikas on four New School Kerrey Hall dormitory doors altogether, News NY1 reported Sunday.
The room where the first swastika was discovered is home to four students, two of whom are Jewish and one Latina.
The Nazi symbols were scrubbed off by security.
The students whose door had been vandalized said they are shocked and scared. One of them told News NY1 that “it just shows that this can happen anywhere. Hatred is rampant. Anyone can be a victim of it.”
Another student said the experience “felt very violating and personal because it happened in a space where we live, where we hang out, where we sleep.”
Sam Lichtenstein, 20, who lives with three Jewish roommates at the dormitory, told the NY Daily News that she broke down in tears after seeing the swastika that had been drawn in black marker on her door. “It was just heartbreaking,” she said, adding it was “crazy to have it happen in such a progressive city, and a progressive university.”
Lichtenstein tweeted pictures of the defaced doors to New School President David Van Zandt, who later made a statement condemning the hate crime, and saying the school is taking action to keep students and staff safe.
Mayor Bill de Blasio called the act “reprehensible.”
At about the same time the swastikas were drawn on the Manhattan dorm door, vandals drew the Nazi symbol on a sidewalk in Crown Heights, a neighborhood with a large number of religious Jewish residents.