A Tragic Education: Nazi Homeschoolers Teach Their Children to Respect Hitler

 By David Starr

 

Just when homeschooling children couldn’t get any worse, there are a small group of Nazis in the United States, specifically Ohio, that have been teaching their children Nazi ideology and to admire Hitler since 2021. Researchers have brought this tragic story out into the open. 

 

The Anonymous Comrades Collective, a group of anti-fascist researchers, uncovered the story and it spread to other sources, like the Huffington Post, Vice News, People’s World, the Ohio State Education Department, and Ohio’s NAACP chapter. 

 

An entity called the “Dissident Homeschool” network operates this repulsive program. It currently has 2,500 members and is supposedly growing. Children are exposed to the writings of Hitler, and there is the planning of lessons as well as the study of Nazi ideology. The name of the network is nothing more than a farce, along with what it stands for. But it is also potentially dangerous. Years ago, this would be only on the fringes of the right. Now, thanks mainly to the Republican Party, it threatens to go mainstream. 

 

A couple, using the alias of “Mr. and Mrs. Saxon,” their names are actually Logan and Katja Lawrence, operates the network and has a channel called Telegram. John Wojcik of the publication People’s World quoted the administrator of the channel in regards to its outlook on Martin Luther King: “It is up to us to ensure our children know him [MLK] for the deceitful, dishonest riot-inciting negro he actually was. He is the face of a movement which ethnically cleaned whites out of urban areas and precipitated the anti-white regime that we are now fighting to free ourselves from.” 

 

Not only that, the network demonizes MLK as “the antithesis of our civilization and our people.” On the other hand, they see Confederate general Robert E. Lee as a “grand role model for young, white men.”

 

Vice News published an article by David Gilbert quoting Katja Lawrence, who had this view of why she educates her children at home: “We have our children’s best interest at heart and nobody can do a better job than we can because it’s our child. We are so deeply invested into making sure that that child becomes a wonderful Nazi.” This perverse defense of her goals will probably ruin the child’s life. 

 

It is incredible how these individuals try to play the victim when the ideology they adhere to gives them the “right” to violate the rights of others; namely, Jews, gays, and people of color. The members of the network would probably say that they are protecting white culture. But what they are really protecting is white privilege. For about 500 years, there have been whites who have gone on the offensive worldwide. Meaning, the rule of the European colonial powers and then later the U.S. empire; with all the consequences of such domination. 

 

The Lawrences live in Upper Sandusky, a town with a population of 7,000. They have been trying to make connections with other right-wing groups in an effort to show strength-in-numbers. This would include the use of violence to obtain their ultra-nationalist goals. 

 

Various news outlets tried to contact the Lawrences to get a more detailed take on what their homeschooling network does. But, the Lawrences did not respond. They know that they have something to hide. 

 

The Lawrences have four children, and it is tragic that they are brought up being brainwashed with Nazi propaganda. It is, unfortunately, a pattern going from generation-to-generation. As adults, these kids could be just as worse as their parents.

 

The main feature for the network is the idea of homeschooling. The right in general does not approve of public education, and so resort to teaching their own children. However, katja Lawrence would approve of a public school system similar to that in Nazi Germany. This is an example of isolating their children from experiences in the outside world. Humans are social beings and to deprive one’s child of learning about other people, cultures and ideas is a form of abuse.

 

Not surprisingly, there was wide condemnation of the network and its objectives. For example, in The Guardian, writer Adam Gabbatt quoted Stephanie Siddens, interim Ohio state school board president, saying she was “outraged and saddened” by this attempt to glorify Hitler and Nazism. “There is absolutely no place for hate-filled, divisive and hurtful instruction in Ohio’s schools, including our state’s home-community. I emphatically and categorically denounce the racist, antisemitic and fascist ideology and materials being circulated as reported in recent media stories.”

 

Tom Roberts, president of the Ohio NAACP, said, “I was shocked. I know that there is all kinds of hate and all kinds of anti-American groups out there, but for it to be taught in school is another subject altogether.”

 

In Vice News, David Gilbert wrote the following: “Since the group began October 2021 it has openly embraced Nazi ideology and promoted white supremacy, while proudly discouraging parents from letting their white children play with or have contact with people of any other race. Admins and members use racist, homophobic, and antisemitic slurs without shame, and quote Hitler and other Nazi leaders daily in a channel open to the public.”

 

For parents to teach their children to glorify Hitler and Nazi ideology is not only grossly irresponsible. It will alienate their children in a diverse world.