Violence among children
Pastor asks on the anniversary of the death of twelve-year-old Luise: Don’t make a pilgrimage to Freudenberg
Here in Freudenberg, between Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, the twelve-year-old student was stabbed to death by two girls
© Oliver Berg / dpa
Student Luise from Freudenberg was brutally killed in the spring of 2023 – by two people her own age. What does such an act do to the survivors and the place of horror?
If she was still alive, she would be in eighth grade. She would be 13 years old now and probably having plans and fun with her friends and family. But Luise was robbed of this chance. A year ago, the student was brutally stabbed, on March 11, 2023. She bled to death just a few kilometers away from her home in the small town of Freudenberg near Siegen, where she was found in a forested area in Rhineland-Palatinate, right on the border with North Rhine-Westphalia. Two Children, girls aged 12 and 13 at the time, confessed to the bloody act. Shocking to this day.
“The horror remains,” says Mayor Nicole Reschke from the SPD. The suffering of those left behind is immeasurable. “The path to normality is not an easy one.” According to Reschke, the needs of Luise’s family are the top priority. It is difficult to bear that the “question of why” remains unanswered. The two alleged perpetrators cannot be prosecuted criminally. Children under 14 years of age are not of criminal responsibility. The investigation was stopped in the fall.
However, the case could possibly be dealt with through another legal route. The survivors have sued the underage perpetrators for damages, among other things. The civil lawsuit was filed before the Koblenz regional court. For the torment suffered by the twelve-year-old girl, Luise’s family believes that compensation of 50,000 euros is appropriate, as well as 30,000 euros each for the next of kin.
According to a court spokesman, the dispute amounts to a total of around 160,000 euros. Unlike criminal law, children older than seven could be held liable for tortious acts. The “Westfalenpost” had previously reported. According to the court, the proceedings are ongoing. There is currently no date for a possible trial.
Flowers and stuffed animals no longer help Luise’s family
For their protection, the Protestant pastor Thomas Ijewski leaves it unanswered whether the family still lives in Freudenberg or has moved away. He expresses their wish that they should not approach the girl’s grave and that privacy should be respected. Even flowers and stuffed animals no longer help the family, he says. Shortly before the anniversary, a sea of flowers, candles and memorabilia can still be seen at the site where the child’s body was found, a few kilometers away.
When asked about establishing a central memorial, the priest says that people should keep Luise in their hearts instead of “carving the cruel event in stone.” With the killing of the girl, two “basic assumptions about life” were shattered: that children are good and that friends stick together. Although the investigators had said almost nothing about the perpetrators, it is clear that the three knew each other.
District Administrator Andreas Müller from the SPD speaks of a “cruel area of tension”. Luise was forcibly taken away from her family forever, but there would be “no punishment in the classic sense” for the girls who confessed. It is mandatory to pave the perpetrators a way back to life. For some people this is very unsatisfactory, outrageous and violates their subjective sense of justice. But: “We have to live with it and deal with it.”
The perpetrators are of legal age: Do they have severe feelings of guilt?
Shortly after Luise’s death, a debate about earlier criminal responsibility arose, but was rejected by the vast majority of people as wrong. North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) had promised that Luise’s death would not be without consequences. In May, the state parliament commissioned the North Rhine-Westphalia government to research the causes of increasing child and youth crime. When asked, the Ministry of the Interior said that the State Criminal Police Office had been commissioned to implement the study, but that there were no results yet.
The confessed children had moved from Freudenberg with their families, were placed under the care of the youth welfare office and placed in a therapeutic facility. cDo you have severe feelings of guilt? He couldn’t comment on that, says youth department head Thomas Wüst, but then explains: “They find the burden to be immense.” One girl has now moved to a residential group, the other is still undergoing clinical treatment. The two of them were left with their family environment as their “only anchor”.
Pastor Ijewski warns not to make a pilgrimage to Freudenberg on the anniversary, but to commemorate it in silence. Everything is still too fresh, too close, too terrible, it takes time. “Wounds may heal, but scars will remain.”