GERMANY
The New Age
A former longtime director and several teachers are accused of physically abusing children over decades at the school of the most well-known children’s choir in Germany, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Regensburg said Tuesday.
Seventy-two children who went to the school for the Regensburger Domspatzen choir have stepped forward to say they were abused from 1953 to 1992, the diocese in the southern state of Bavaria said. They said they were hit with fists, rods and a bunch of keys.
The diocese said it acknowledged the abuse had taken place and offered payment of damages of 2,500 euros (2,840 dollars) in each case.
“The money is no compensation but a symbolic acknowledgement of the pain that was done to these children,” vicar general Michael Fuchs said.
Many of the 8- to 10-year-old boys in the school lived in permanent state of fear, a preliminary report compiled by the diocese said.
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