December 17, 2008, - 12:07 pm
So Sad, Too Bad: Parents Who Named Kid “Hitler” Can’t Find Bakery for B-Day Cake
By Debbie Schlussel
Wish I could say I feel sorry for little Adolf Hitler Campbell, who lives near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Sunday was his third birthday, and his parents couldn’t find a bakery to agree to make a birthday cake for someone with a name honoring contemporary time’s greatest mass murderer.
But at age three, the kid doesn’t know enough about what’s going on to feel bad. And when he is old enough, he’ll already be fully ingrained with his insane parents’ neo-Nazi hatred. This can be a good lesson for little Adolf in how Americans feel about Nazis and Holocaust denial, ie., that some Americans still have an iota of values and principles
His parents, Heath and Deborah Campbell, are Holocaust deniers who’ve named their other kids, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, a girl named for Schutzstaffel head Heinrich Himmler. Let me guess–JoyceLynn (if she’s smart, and defies her parents’ DNA) will not include her joyous middle names on her resume.
Oh, and by the way, the Campbells don’t work. They’re living off of you. Mr. Campbell says that at age 35, he can’t work because of emphysema. He’s soaking taxpayers to pay for his Nazi memorabilia collection. Mrs. Campbell, in her mid-20s, says she can’t waitress because of a bad back. Tell that to every waitress in America, who breaks her back and doesn’t live off of social security at age 25.
In a living room decorated with war books, German combat knives and swastikas, a 2-year-old boy, blond and blue-eyed, played with a plastic dinner set.
The boy, asked his name, put down a tiny plate and ran behind his father’s leg. He flashed a shy smile but wouldn’t answer. Heath Campbell, 35, the boy’s father, encouraged him.
“Say Adolf,” said Campbell, a Holocaust denier who has three children named for Nazism.
Again, the boy wouldn’t answer. It wasn’t the first time the name caused hesitation.
Adolf Hitler Campbell — it’s indeed the name on his birth certificate — turns 3 today, and the Campbell family believes the boy has been mistreated. A local supermarket refused to make a birthday cake with “Adolf Hitler” on it.
The ShopRite in Greenwich Township has also refused to make a cake bearing the name of Campbell’s daughter, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, who turns 2 in February.
Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, a girl named for Schutzstaffel head Heinrich Himmler, turns 1 in April.
“ShopRite can’t even make a cake for a 3-year-old,” said Deborah Campbell, 25, who is Heath’s wife of three years and the mother of the children. “That’s sad.”. . .
Karen Meleta, a ShopRite spokeswoman, said the grocer tries to meet customer requests but rejects those deemed inappropriate. “We believe the request to inscribe a birthday wish to Adolf Hitler is inappropriate,” she said.
The grocer offered to make a cake with enough room for the Campbells to write their own inscription. But the Campbells refused, saying they would have a cake made at the Wal-Mart in Lower Nazareth Township. The Campbells say Wal-Mart made cakes for Adolf’s first two birthdays.
A spokeswoman for Wal-Mart said the store won’t put anything illegal or profane on a cake but thinks it’s important to respect the views of customers and employees.
“Our No. 1 priority in decorating cakes is to serve the customer to the best of our ability,” Anna Taylor, the spokeswoman, said from Bentonville, Ark. . . .
The Campbells have swastikas in each room of their home, the rented half of a one-story duplex just outside Milford, a borough in Hunterdon County. . . .
The Campbells said they wanted their children to have unique names and didn’t expect the names to cause problems. Despite the cake refusal, the Campbells said they don’t expect the names to cause problems later, such as when the children start school.
“I just figured that they’re just names,” Deborah Campbell said. “They’re just kids. They’re not going to hurt anybody.” . . .
“They’re just names, you know,” [Heath Campbell] said. “Yeah, they (Nazis) were bad people back then. But my kids are little. They’re not going to grow up like that.”
“Other kids get their cake. I get a hard time,” he said. “It’s not fair to my children.
“How can a name be offensive?” he asked. . . .
Disabilities, the couple says, have left both out of work: Heath Campbell can’t landscape or pump gas because he has emphysema, and Deborah can’t waitress because she has a bad back. They live on Social Security payments.
In the foyer, Heath Campbell, who said he has German ancestry and a relative who fought for the SS, took off boots he said were worn by a Nazi solider named Daniel.
He laid them next to a skull with a swastika on its forehead, the first of dozens of swastikas seen by the Campbells’ rare guests.
There are swastikas on walls, on jackets, on the freezer and on a pillow. The family car had swastikas, Heath Campbell said, until New Jersey’s Department of Children and Families told him they could endanger the children.
I’m actually surprised and gratified to see that ShopRite won’t do the cake, especially in these tough economic times and days of political correctness so dominant that anything goes. Jeers to Wal-Mart, which never seems to have any principles, whether it means pressuring contractors to hire illegal aliens or having no qualms about glorifying Nazis.
I wonder if–but don’t expect–places like ShopRite will have the same resolve when asked to do up a birthday cake for kids named Hezbollah Smith, or Osama Bin Laden Jones, or I Luv Nine-Eleven Anderson. Don’t laugh–Muslims in Dearborn have scheduled kids’ births for 9/11 and have named their kids “Khomeini,” for the Islamic fundamentalist leader who took our Embassy officials hostage and helped lead the creation of Hezbollah.
My grgrgrandfather immigrated to the US from Germany in the late 1800’s. His first name was Adolph. By 1930 he changed his first name to Edward and place of birth to France. A simple stone mason knew something evil was connected to that name. He was a member of The Mutual Aid Society. I’m sure you know what that was, they helped Jews immigrate to the US. My grgrgrandfather was a Catholic. These parents are more aware of what is attached to that name than my grgrgrandfatehr could ever have guessed. They have made their children open to all sorts of taunts and heartache.
jayne goss on December 17, 2008 at 1:28 pm