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Hamburg church district is looking for witnesses to sexual abuse

A new suspicion is placed on the Protestant church: in the Groß Wittfeitzen leisure camp in Lower Saxony, there was apparently at least one case of sexual abuse in the early 2000s.

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Hamburg church district is looking for witnesses to sexual abuse

A new suspicion is placed on the Protestant church: in the Groß Wittfeitzen leisure camp in Lower Saxony, there was apparently at least one case of sexual abuse in the early 2000s. A boy who was about nine years old at the time had been abused by a supervisor for several years, the church district of Hamburg-Ost said on Tuesday. The person concerned contacted the Evangelical North Church in 2019, said the independent reporting officer for the church district Jette Heinrich.

Under suspicion is a then about 20-year-old teamer who was active in several parishes in the Vier- und Marschlanden at the time of the crime. It was said that he had not been active in the church district for 20 years.

At the time in question, the camp was attended by at least seven parishes. Groups from Kirchwerder, Geesthacht, Neuengamme, Altengamme, Langenhorn, Neuallermöhe and from the Friedenskirche Altona were there. However, lists of participants from that time are no longer available, it said. According to Heinrich, the attacks are said to have taken place at night in a tent and during the day in the showers of a nearby outdoor pool.

The church district is now looking for witnesses or other possible victims. According to provost Ulrike Murmann, the participants were children and adolescents at the time. They might have perceived situations as more harmless than they really were. In retrospect, the current publication can make it clear to them that it was a matter of abuse.

The person concerned filed a complaint with the police in 2019. The fact that the case is only now being made public is due on the one hand to the long personal process of the person concerned and on the other hand to the structural requirements, such as the requirements of the public prosecutor, said Heinrich. She had many conversations and a close exchange with the person concerned. It is important that those affected decide about their story. According to Heinrich, it takes a lot of courage to contact the registration officer, "they shouldn't be deprived of control over themselves and their history again".

The public prosecutor's office stopped the investigation in 2021 because a conviction of the suspected teamer was not to be expected, it said. The church district is nevertheless convinced that the attacks have taken place, said Murmann. "We have no doubts about what the person concerned has told us."

It is important that those affected report, this is the only way the prevention work can be expanded. Today, people are no longer looking the other way, "but even small signs are taken seriously," says Murmann. Supervisors are now much better trained than 20 years ago and the protection concept has become tighter, it said.

The Groß Wittfeitzen tent camp is located in Wendland, Lower Saxony. Groß Wittfeitzen is a district of the municipality of Waddeweitz in the district of Lüchow-Dannenberg. Church groups have been going there for over 70 years. Every year during the summer holidays, children from different Hamburg communities meet in the camp.

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