They Made Me Feel Like I Wasn’t a Normal Child

My name is Ruben, and I was born in Starnberg and, really early as a baby, moved to Stuttgart with my parents, and I grew up there.

In kindergarten, I attended a private school, here in Stuttgart, then continued on to elementary school up to third grade. Then came the moment—I was at school one day and my classmates told me that I would now have to leave the school. So I went home to my parents and asked them what was meant by that. And they explained to me what had happened.

A so-called sect filter had been distributed to all parents. All the parents at the school had to sign that they were neither Scientologists nor sympathized with Scientology. And if you couldn’t sign that, your children had to leave the school. That made no sense to me. First I—I think I cried for hours because I felt it was so unfair. And in the end, there was nothing I could do about it. I had to leave the school at the end of that year.

I then went to a public school because we wanted to avoid any further problems. And there, too, I was actually received very kindly. And a few weeks later, a special parents’ meeting was called. And there was a lot of hostility, a lot of fear among the parents, a lot of concerns that their children might come into contact with me and—you have to imagine, I was a child, but the environment made me feel like I wasn’t a normal child. That was pretty tough, I have to say.

Later, when I was in high school, we had ethics class. And one day the teacher was talking about the subject of Scientology. And she started speaking about Scientology and what it is. And what was strange was, for me, it had nothing to do with what I know about Scientology or how I have experienced it. And at the same time, of course, I was sitting there and again, had this intense feeling in my gut that I was about to be sick. It’s just incredibly unfair. It has greatly affected both my life, my childhood, as well as the lives of many, many other people. And I don’t think anyone in this world should have to live in fear because of their religious affiliation.