Family Fears Little Adolf Hitler Won't Come Home
Adolf Hitler Campbell's family is afraid he and his sisters will be put up for adoption
By KAREN ARAIZA
Updated 7:11 AM EST, Thu, May 28, 2009
Little Adolf Hitler Campbell’s future may be shaped by two huge events he had no control over -- the name his parents gave him and the day last December when a grocery store refused to put that name on his birthday cake. Adolf was only three. Now, his family says the fury over the cake episode may cost Adolf and his young sisters the one thing kids count on the most -- their parents.
Adolf’s sisters also have names associated with Nazis : JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszylynn Hinter Jeannie Campbell. After the controversial birthday cake story made headlines around the world in January, the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services took all three kids out of their parents’ Milford home.
An aunt, speaking on behalf of the family, says they’re all afraid now that the children will be put up for adoption. The big question is: Why?
"I think the names were a big part of it. Adolf Hitler, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation? Their names had a lot to do with ther being taken," Jeannie Coverdale told NBC10's Doug Shimell Wednesday. She is speaking on behalf of the couple so they don't break the gag order in the case.
Parents Deborah and Heath Campbell, who received death threats after defending the birthday cake request, said in January they heard rumors that someone made an anonymous and what Heath called a false allegation of child abuse against them.
Right now, the Campbells get to visit their kids twice a week but Coverdale say five months after the kids were taken away, no one has given them any kind of detailed explanation.
"They're not giving Heath and Debbie any information or telling them how to gain their kids back," Covendale said. "I truthfully think that Youth Services will put the kids up for adoption."
State officials are not supposed to talk publicly about cases involving minors in order to protect the children. Dad, Heath Campbell said the agency told him in January the children were removed because they were in "imminent danger."
The Campbells, in interviews, have continually denied being Nazi sympathizers or anything of the sort. The couple has defended the names of their children saying they found them in baby books and reserve the right to name their children whatever they like.
“A name is a name,” Heath Campbell said last December.
Coverdale also defended the names earlier this year with this analogy:
“What about tomorrow night when the President of the United States stands up and says, is forced to say, my name is Barack Hussein Obama. How’s that going to hit the world?” Coverdale said. "I'm saying the one with the middle name he has, was a terrorist.”
She says it’s “no different” than having a name like Adolf Hitler.
First Published: May 27, 2009 11:01 PM EST
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