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.
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.
Since the news broke, the Lawrences have departed their home and are currently living in a house provided by another local family with close ties to Logan Lawrence, according to residents of Upper Sandusky who have spoken to VICE News on the condition of anonymity over fears of retribution by the family involved.
Hellbound and Down 