Stuttgart/Korntal (dpa/lsw) – Eight years after decades of abuse and sexual violence in their homes became known, the Evangelical Brotherhood in Korntal and Wilhelmsdorf remembered the events and thought of the victims. On Saturday, three memorials by a Darmstadt artist were erected on the grounds of the three children’s homes and a confession of guilt was read out. About 100 people then gathered for a silent march to the town hall.
The commemoration event is an important contribution to processing what happened, said a spokesman for the Moravian Church. You see them as “an incentive for future generations that something similar never happens again”.
From the reports of those affected and discussions, a terrible picture of residential care in Baden-Württemberg had emerged in recent years. In the Korntal Evangelical Brotherhood, children experienced physical and sexual violence from the 1950s to the 1980s. Dozens of perpetrators are known, mainly supervisors and employees. Hundreds of cases are documented – but the acts are legally statute-barred.
The members of the Korntal Brothers’ Congregation in the Ludwigsburg district, founded in 1819, count themselves among the Pietists, who are considered to be a particularly conservative current in Protestantism. They see the Bible as the revealed Word of God and value an intensive examination of the Holy Scriptures.
