Flemington -- A Superior Court judge has decided that a self-proclaimed Nazi from Holland Township and his wife cannot take back their four children, three of whom were named in honor of the Nazis, the father said yesterday.
The children have been in state custody since January 2009, shortly after the family made headlines when a store refused to decorate a birthday cake for Adolf Hitler Campbell, the oldest child.
The then 3-year-old boy and younger sisters Joycelynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell were quickly put into foster care, and state officials allegedly took a newborn son, Hons Campbell, just hours after his birth in November at Hunterdon Medical Center.
Their father, Heath Campbell, questioned Superior Court Judge Robert Reed's decision to keep the children in state custody. It had nothing to do with quality of life, he said, and was based purely on the names they chose for the children.
Attorneys for the parents declined to comment because they were under a gag order, and Kristine Brown, spokeswoman for the state Division of Youth and Family Services, said she was unable to comment on the case because of confidentiality laws.
However, Brown said "every call or investigation that DYFS initiates at the end of the day is to determine if the child is at risk or in the midst of child abuse and neglect."
According to Campbell, there were no instances of that.
"These kids weren't abused. Our kids weren't taken because of abuse," he said. "I'm honest about who I am and what I am."
Campbell, who still lives in Hunterdon County, last saw his children roughly a year ago. He said he is now separated from his wife, Deborah, who lives out of state.
"If I have to give up my Nazism, then so be it. I'll do it," he said. The children are "more my heart and soul and everything than anything."
The family plans to appeal, the Campbells' attorney said.
