Friday, March 23, 2007

German Court Places Custody of Yet Another 5 Homeschooling Children with Government's Youth Office

From "German Court Places Custody of Yet Another 5 Homeschooling Children with Government's Youth Office" by Peter J. Smith, posted 3/22/07, at LifeSite.net

ZITTAU, Germany, March 22, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A German court in the eastern province of Saxony has revoked custody of five children from their homeschooling parents, placing the fate of the children into the hands of the Jugendamt, the local youth welfare office.

The Christian Broadcasting Network reports the court ordered the Jugendamt, an organization created by National Socialist chancellor Adolf Hitler in 1939, to retain custody of Rosine, Jotham, Kurt-Simon, Lovis and Ernst, the children of Bert and Kathrin Brause of Zittau, until they are returned to public school.

Although the children still remain with their parents, the Jugendamt may seize them forcibly at any time, as was the case with 15 year-old Melissa Busekros in Bavaria. Busekros was snatched by 15 police officers over 6 weeks ago to a psychiatric clinic in Nuremburg for "school phobia," and continues to remain separated from her family in an undisclosed location.

According to court documents translated by the International Human Rights Group (IHRG), the judge gave her order on the basis that the Brauses' refusal to send their children to the public school violated Germany's mandatory school attendance law.

While the judge admitted that the Brause children were well-educated under the direction of the Philadelphia school, a German homeschooling umbrella organization, she accused the parents - both having college degrees - of abusing their children by denying them the benefits of the public school.

The judge complained the Brause children answered her with the same opinions of her father, concluding they lacked independent personalities. In the Busekros case, the Erlangen Jugendamt told the Bavarian court she was influenced too much by her father and thus had an underdeveloped personality...

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