Ohio’s department of education is investigating neo-Nazi ‘Dissident Homeschooling’, a homeschooling network that claims public schools are run by ‘Zionist scum,’ teaches kids to say ‘Sieg Heil’ in class and instructs fellow parents not to give their kids ‘Jewish media content.’ The couple who are running the organization are Katja and Logan Lawrence, or ‘Mr. and Mrs. Saxon.’
There are more than 2,500 members of the “Dissident Homeschool Network,” a channel on the social network messaging app Telegram. The “dissidents” are a group of Nazi parents who share homeschooling lesson plans extolling the virtues of Hitler and white nationalism — while relying on a popular social media account run by a Jewish woman to provide ammunition for their hatred. The founders of the group were recently unmasked by a hate group monitor as a couple in rural Upper Sandusky, Ohio.
“There is absolutely no place for hate-filled, divisive and hurtful instruction in Ohio’s schools, including our state’s home-schooling community,” Stephanie Siddens, the interim superintendent of public instruction at Ohio’s education department, told Vice News. “I emphatically and categorically denounce the racist, antisemitic, and fascist ideology and materials being circulated.”
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, along with Rep. Bob Latta, whose district encompasses Upper Sandusky, and Rep. Jim Jordan, all gave statements to Vice News condemning the group.
“We are so deeply invested into making sure that [our] child becomes a wonderful Nazi,” the founder of Dissident Homeschool Network, who goes by the pseudonym “Mrs. Saxon,” recently said on a neo-nazi podcast to promote the group. She has been identified by the Anonymous Comrades Collective, an anti-Nazi group, as well as Vice News and HuffPost, as Katja Lawrence, a Dutch immigrant who currently lives in Upper Sandusky, Ohio.
While the @AnonComrades have long used humour to as a defense against the soul corroding nature of the work we do, it is hard to find any levity in the Nazi indoctrination of children. This is one of the most disturbing exposés to date. STRONG CONTENT WARNING
— Anonymous Comrade Replicant (@AnonCommieStan) January 23, 2023
Lawrence is a recently naturalized US citizen who frequently rails against other groups of immigrants on social media; her husband, Logan is an insurance agent. The Lawrences are so enamored of Nazidom that Katja uploaded audio of her own kids performing Nazi salutes to her Telegram channel and baked a cake to celebrate Hitler’s birthday.
Launched in the fall of 2021, the Lawrences’ homeschooling project is explicitly labeled as a means for neo-Nazi parents to indoctrinate their kids by keeping them away from public school. Lesson plans include teaching cursive by having students write out famous quotes from Hitler and American neo-nazi George Lincoln Rockwell; building “math” classes around racist manipulations of urban crime statistics; and praising Confederate general Robert E. Lee as “a grand role model for young, white men.” In idle chats, members of the group disparaged the Indiana Jones movies as “Jewish revenge porn.”
On the channel, Katja Lawrence frequently boasts about the size and strength of their Nazi parents’ movement: “There is a huge network of people like us.”