The Ohio couple at the center of the Nazi homeschooling scandal have spoken publicly about their online community of Hitler-loving parents and have defended their actions as “just extra fun” and “so wholesome.”
Predictably, they have also blamed “antifa” for negative coverage of their pro-Hitler homeschooling network.
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Katja and Logan Lawrence were unmasked last month as the couple running the Dissident Homeschool network from their home in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, in reports from VICE News and HuffPost, which were based on a report from the anti-fascist research group known as the Anonymous Comrades Collective.
Starting in late 2021, the couple ran a now-deleted Telegram channel with over 2,500 members, and shared their own classroom resources, weaving Hitler quotes, antisemitic themes, and white supremacist ideologies into their math lessons and homework assignments.
In their first public comments since they were unmasked, the Lawrences staunchly defended their actions.
“The chat was so wholesome,” Katja Lawrence told the Nazi-promoting website Justice Report in an interview published on Monday. “It was mostly homeschooling moms that were lifting each other up when things got difficult.”
In reality the content shared in the channel was deeply racist, including a lesson plan to mark the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. last month that described the assassinated civil rights leader as a “deceitful, dishonest, riot-inciting negro.”
The Lawrences blasted the mainstream media for “cherry-picking” the neo-Nazi aspects of their lesson plans, claiming that these were “just fun extras” they added to the regular curriculum they taught their four young children.
“We were deliberately made to look very unappealing,” Katja Lawrence said.
It is unsurprising that the Lawrences decided to give their first interview to Justice Report, given it is linked to the National Justice Party, a white supremacist group that was a member of the Dissident Homeschool channel. Katja Lawrence also encouraged her members to join their local “pool party,” which is the name the NJP gives to its real world meet ups for neo-Nazis.
The Lawrences told Justice Report that they were concerned about potential attacks against them and their children based on posts made by “antifa” accounts on social media. But the Lawrences also confirmed that “no one had approached them or made any actionable threats in person.”
The revelations about the Nazi homeschooling group led to a review by the Ohio Department of Education. However, the state found that the Lawrences were doing nothing illegal, and indicated there was nothing the department could do about it.
In the interview with Justice Report, Logan Lawrence said the reason he and his wife decided to homeschool their children, after her eldest child had spent four years in public school, was because ”the system is very anti-White and we just wanted a positive image for our kids.”
But last year, Katja Lawrence told a neo-Nazi podcast that the reason she started the group was because she was “having a rough time finding Nazi-approved school material for [her] homeschool children.”
In their interview with Justice Report, the couple also criticized the public school system and made some wild allegations about their local schools.
“Our middle school has reportedly had incidents of kids having sex inside the hallways,” Katja Lawrence said. “Middle school! While I want my kids to be able to make their own choices, I want to shield them from certain things. I want my kids to grow up to be straight, married, and Christian.”
She also claimed a student in one of her daughter’s classes threw a chair at a teacher.
VICE News asked the superintendent of the Upper Sandusky Exempted Village Schools district for comment on these allegations but did not receive a response before publication.
While the Justice Report interview has not been shared widely, there has been an effort to promote it in the largest Upper Sandusky Facebook group, according to two people familiar with the matter. Someone attempted to publish a link to the article on Wednesday, but administrators of the group have been debating whether or not to publish it. At the time of publication, the link had not appeared in the group.
Following the revelations, the Lawrences were kicked out of a number of local homeschool groups on Facebook, but believed they would be welcomed at the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). The HSLDA is the nation’s most influential homeschooling organization and has in the past promoted spanking, while opposing contraception, abortion, and same-sex marriage..
Unfortunately for the Lawrences, their brand of white supremacist homeschooling was not welcome at the HSLDA and their membership was rejected, according to a letter the couple shared with Justice Report.
Yet the Lawrences remain undeterred; they told the Justice Report their resolve to raise their children in a pro-Nazi environment is stronger than ever.
“I am deeply committed to giving my kids a positive, pro-White education,” Katja Lawrence said.
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