German homeschool advocate says Nazis have returned
Reports of government persecution vastly under-reported, he tells WND

Posted: December 23, 2006

By Bob Unruh

For parents who wish to teach their own children in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Germany today is not much better than it was under Nazi party control in the 1930s and 1940s, according to a man who lives there and is pleading for international help for his country.

"We are not far away from an intolerant dictatorship in our country," the man wrote WND. "Parental rights are more and more abolished. If you do not the way the state wants, to so-called Jugendamt (youth welfare office) is quickly to check out if they can take away the custody of your children."

He said for homeschoolers, the crackdown is getting so "draconian" they are fleeing to other countries, leaving homes and sometimes jobs behind, in order to protect their children from the anti-Christian teachings of the secular school system.

The man identifies himself as being part of the German homeschool support organization Netz-Bildung Freiheit (Net-Education Freedom). He contacted WND after the news website broke the story that a German government official had warned that families' religious beliefs will have to be brought into alignment with required school attendance laws.

His name is being withheld by WND so that he is not targeted for speaking out, because he is pleading with those outside of Germany to launch a campaign to focus international attention on their actions.

"We hope that it will have an impact on the persons in responsibility that the international publicity is looking on them," the homeschool leader wrote to WND. "Express your protest against the violation of parental rights and the right of the free choice of education."

"The situation for families is depressing, all the lawsuits have been lost in the past, judges are not ready to acknowledge the conflict in conscience of the Christian homeschoolers," he wrote. "Freedom of faith and conscience is a matter which is officially a basic right granted in the constitution, but practically it isn't worth the paper it is written on.

"As long as you practice your faith in a church building you have no problems, but as soon as you act in accordance to your faith, for example, in the education of your children, the freedom ends rapidly," he said.

He likened the situation to that of families under the Nazi regime, or "like in the former Soviet Union under the Communists."

"For that reason many homeschool families have left the country and emigrated to Norway, Ireland, Canada, USA, Great Britain and others. The families who remained are in a desperate situation. So every help from America or other countries is welcomed and may help us.

"So my urgent appeal to you: Don't forget us. [Tell people] the government harasses homeschooling parents who do the best for their children and who are in most of the cases Bible-believe Christians."

The Home School Legal Defense Association, at the same time, was issuing a plea for help for German homeschoolers:

"We have sent out information periodically on Germany. The situation, unfortunately, is not getting any better, and they need your prayers and support," the organization said. "Most recently, a decision was handed down by the European Court of Human rights (which) … completely turned the European Union Constitution's Article 14, the section on parent's rights to control the education of their children, completely upside down."

That decision will allow any nation in the EU, should it choose, to outlaw homeschooling. "Meanwhile, the German homeschoolers continue to be unmercifully persecuted. In our last report, we explained that there were approximately 40 families in court at one stage or the other. Families are fleeing regularly to other foreign countries in order to continue homeschooling…"

One lawyer who worked on the German case said what is "stunning" is the state's aggression against homeschoolers, while it ignores "the hundred thousand students who do not go to school at all, where the parents do not even care about their children."

[That's very telling. The state doesn't care if you choose your own flavor of ignorance. It does care, and will attack you, if you attempt to replaces its lies with the truth in the mind of your child.]

The HSLDA noted that one homeschool mother recently was interviewed by the Christian Broadcasting Network, and two days later was jailed. In one of the German states, the the Romeike family had their grade-school children forcibly hauled to the public school by police until they moved.

Another homeschool family was ordered to have their children in school, even though a doctor provided a medical reason for one child to be at home, "so they have fled outside of Germany and are in the underground."

The HSLDA said tax-deductible donations could be made to its Foundation to help those families.

The German homeschool father said public comments would be very helpful, and should be directed first to several state education administrators, because they are the ones in whom Germany has invested the power to make such decisions:

* Mr. Steffen Flath, The Free State of Saxony, via e-mail at: Steffen.Flath@smk.sachsen.de or by mail at: Saechsisches Staatsministerium für Kultus, Carolaplatz 1, 01097 Dresden, Letter post: Postfach 100 910 01079 Dresden or via telephone at: +49 351-564-0.

* Helmut Rau, Baden-Württemberg, via e-mail at: Helmut.Rau@km.kv.bwl.de or by mail at: Ministerium für Kultus, Jugend und Sport Schlossplatz 4 70173 Stuttgart or via telephone at: +49 711/279-2531.

* Barbara Sommer, North Rhine-Westphalia, via e-mail at: barbara.sommer@msw.nrw.de or by mail at: Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung, des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, 40190 Düsseldorf or via telephone at: +49 211/5867-3535 or 3536.

The earlier threat from a state education official was reported in an English translation at the Homeschoolblogger.com website.

"The Minister of Education does not share your attitudes toward so-called homeschooling and is not prepared to approve a corresponding pilot project," said a government letter in response to a request for consideration for a family whose children were taken to school by police.

"You complain about the forced school escort of primary school children by the responsible local police officers on the basis of paragraph 86 of the education law as a measure of the execution of authority. It is known to the ministry of education that primary school students can be particularly burdened by the related contradiction between the norms of the parent-house and that of the public school through such forced escorts."

The government letter continued with a solution:

"In order to avoid this in future, the education authority is in conversation with the affected family in order to look for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the family into line with the unalterable school attendance requirement," the government said.

U.S. homeschool leaders are very worried.

Michael Farris, cofounder of the HSLDA, has called for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to protect the right of parents to educate their children at home, in light of what is developing in Europe, and the growing influence of international court conclusions in the U.S.

His concern is that if the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child were ratified by the Senate or adopted by the federal courts as enforceable international law, American homeschooling could be banned.

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53484

Unfortunately, those are only a few from thosands of grave human rights violations, which are registered annually under modern democratic regimes. The worst offenders in this regards are France, Germany and Britain: so these blatant violations of human rights of parents and children in question seem to support the widespread view, that these regimes are broken beyond repair, and should be replaced asap.

Homeschooling ensures the apple never falls far from the tree. Which is as it should be.

Homeschooling: Are parents making the grade in educational decisions?

On Sept. 7, 2006, police raided the home of Katharina Plett and arrested her for home schooling her 12 children.� Home schooling is illegal in Germany and is becoming increasingly forbidden in many other European countries.�

Fortunately, Plett's husband and children were able to flee the country the previous day.� However, this gravely oppressive action was condoned by the European Court of Human Rights, which released the following statement:� "Parents may not refuse the right to education of a child on the basis of their convictions."� This cleverly worded statement in fact dodges the heart of the matter: Plett was providing education to her children, and was denying the German state's "right" to educate her children.�

Father Richard John Neuhaus of First Things correctly pointed out that in light "of the catastrophic demographics of Europe, one might think that governments would be more solicitous of people who are having children at all." In fact, the most prolific families in Europe are overwhelmingly those with profound religious convictions, especially Muslim and devout Christian families.� People of both faiths have been vocally against the infamously graphic sex education that Germany mandates for all students, as well as the blatantly anti-religious academic regimen.� Even non-religious families, however, have deeply criticized German students' poor academic standing, which is not on par with the rest of Europe, and still they cannot take it upon themselves to give their children a decent education because of the state's insistence that each child attend their schools.� How can the state honestly decide that it is the best education provider?�

Anyone who has ever tried to interact reasonably with any government agency (the Department of Motor Vehicles comes to mind immediately) can tell you that if anyone lacks intelligence, it is those government employees who insist on locking themselves into their ideological ivory towers.� We must not allow these bumbling bureaucrats to soley decide on issues as important as education.� Fruitful dialogue with citizens is necessary, and European governments are not willing to listen.

Fortunately, European parents have found an outlet by reviewing American home schooling Web sites, as it is estimated that two million American children are currently home schooled.� Even in America, however, there are increasingly vocal critics of home schooling, which is protected in the States by a little-known and greatly jeopardized Supreme Court ruling, Pierce v. Society of Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus and Mary.� The ruling, judged in 1925, overruled a Ku Klux Klan-backed law in the state of Oregon which would have made state education compulsory for all school-aged children.

The law was so far reaching that not even private schools were deemed acceptable educators.� However, the Sisters rightfully fought and won against the state on the grounds that denying parents the choice of sending their children to a religious school is a direct violation of the First Amendment.� From that ruling, parents were granted the liberty of choosing who would educate their children.�

Througout the years, this has proved vital in securing the rights of each parent as the primary educators of their children, especially on religious grounds.

Yet, in my home state of Connecticut, and indeed in many states across the nation, public schools are becoming increasingly intolerant of parents who attempt to practice their first amendment rights and the rights won as educators in Pierce v. Society of Sisters.�

In one case, a single parent is exasperated at the fact that he is unable to temper the state's decidedly one-sided curriculum that feeds his daughters in kindergarten and first grade.� Although the topics covered in each class are directly opposed to his family's religious beliefs, he can do nothing when the school insists on teaching against them.� This is tantamount to a Jewish family being unable to withdraw their children from school if the teacher insisted the Holocaust did not occur, or a Quaker family whose children would be taught the virtues of war and told that pacifism is futile.�

Clearly, a state monopoly over education is merely one step away from tyranny and indoctrination. Actions against home-schooling must be fought if we are to insure true and continued liberty.