The operator of this non-commercial website is the highly motivated community-minded Martin Mitchell from Australia
(himself an instititionalised and abused minor in church institutions in the former West Germany)
|
( 09.05.2004 )
THE
FORGOTTEN CHILDREN AND JUVENILES OF POST-WAR WEST-GERMANY
(1945-1985)
by Regina Gazelle
All throughout the
postwar years, beginning straight after the war, and continuing
throughout the 1950ies, 60ies, 70ies, and continuing in some cases
into the mid 1980ies, many thousands of us children and juveniles
were held incarcerated in church institutions in the 'care' of
'merciful orders of religion': child welfare hellholes.
More
than 3000 of these prison-like institutions existed in the 1960ies in
every State of West-Germany. Whilst the economy was thriving and
Germany was getting fat during the reconstruction period spanning
several decades after the war children and juveniles disappeared
quietly behind high walls and barbed wire. Here there they were
locked away and severely abused simply for being a burden to
society.
Almost all of these children were from
underprivileged families, deprived and living in poverty, neglected,
orphaned, or raised by overburdened single mothers.
All of us
were in desperate need of a few kind words, a friendly gesture, love
and understanding. But the perpetrators of our hell on earth to come
thought differently.
The official administrators of our child
welfare agencies removed us from society and put us into the 'care'
of church-personnel who called themselves "Sisters" and
"Bothers". The State initiated, financed and tolerated our
existence behind locked doors and barred windows.
The culprits
who actively mistreated and tormented these young people, often for a
duration of many years, were the members of the catholic and
protestant churches in Germany. Nuns, brothers, priests, deacons and
deaconesses and other clergy had no inhibitions to act out their fury
and perversions on us. Severe beatings ("corporal punishment")
and the locking away of children in isolation cells was part of the
daily routine.
If some of us were ill or too disgusted to
consume the non-edible food and threw up, we were forced to re-eat
the vomit. At times we were served stew which contained rind with
bristles still attached. Refusal to empty a plate was met by severe
beatings. We were forced to maintain silence all day. The showing of
emotions was prohibited: no crying, no laughing, no sign of
friendship was allowed. Small, active children were bound to their
chairs during daytime and bound to their beds at night. Children who
soiled their pants were dunked into cold bath water several times and
held under until they almost suffocated. They were given sedatives in
the morning so that they would stay quiet during the day.
Juvenile
boys and teenage girls from the ages of fourteen to twenty-one were
put behind locked doors and barred windows and forced to hard labour
without pay. Isolated areas in the country, especially in the moors,
were also favourite places for child slave labour, particularly for
boys. We had to wear house-uniforms so that we would be easily
recognised in case we managed to escape.
There are no
statistics about these unfortunate souls who suffered this fate. A
big secrecy surrounds the whereabouts of our files both in state and
private hands. Politicians and church personnel are not willing to
comment or give any explanation. Everywhere we turn we are met by a
wall of silence.
During our forcible internment in the years
of our youth all of our fundamental human rights were severely
violated. We did not count as human beings. We were treated like
scum. We actually had it drummed into us that we were "worthless"
and would always remain "worthless". "Nobody wants
you!" they screamed at us, "You are the devil’s
offspring!". I would simply stare into space, often dumb with
shock, wondering if this hell would ever end.
Eventually it
did end, when I was nearly twenty-one. But not at night in my sleep
it ended; I was being haunted by nightmares for many years to
come.
How tragic this time was for so many dependents,
children and teenagers, boys and girls. There was no support-group
interested in us. We were totally at the mercy of these vicious
priests, nuns, deacons and deaconesses. There was no Amnesty
International or any other such organisation to help us, and no
lawyers or a justice system to protect us. There was no child
protection agency. It was they who had handed us to our
tormentors.
We were not criminals (and even criminals should
not be treated the way we were!). We were the helpless and forgotten
children of postwar West-Germany.
Years on, decades later, we
still suffer, all of us, severely traumatised in our childhood, and
the pain remains with us every day for the rest of our lives.
We
will never forget these mental and physical tortures we had to endure
as children at the hands of the churches. We want the world to know
of these atrocities committed on us.
(The author, a German
national, currently living in Paderborn in the German State of
Westphalia, has lived both in the United States and in England, and
speaks fluent English and German).
[
Date of first publication on this Website: 9 May 2004 ]
Subindex No. 1
DW WORLD.DE - DEUTSCHE WELLE on 23.01.2009 in English ( Sabina Casagrande reporting ) ( relating to the former West-Germany ) »Abused Wards Of The State Demand Reparations In Germany« An apology and compensation are long overdue
( The current CDU/SPD Government of the German Federal Republic, however, is dragging its feet. )
News in brief in the German news-magazine FOCUS, Munich the 12 August 2007: »The Association of Former Wards of the State [ of the former West-Germany ] / Former Institutionalised Children / Care-Leavers-Survivors demand compensation - "The firms that made use of institutional child labour ( "unpaid forced labour" ) have to pay"« - announced the lawyer for the victims, Munich human rights lawyer Michael Witti.
Media reports pertaining to an Australian compensation case indexed by GOOGLE: Court Judgment: Compensation for Aborigine of the "Stolen Generation":
TREVORROW -v- STATE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA (No 5) [2007] SASC 285 Judgment of The Honourable Justice Gray - 1 August 2007
Former wards of the state take the initiative. German care-leavers-survivors take Government to task. The German Federal Government is being challenged to answer the following simple question: Ehemalige Heimkinder stellen eine sehr einfache Frage an die Deutsche Bundesregierung:
Legitimate critical observations by the Australian operator, Martin Mitchell, of the community-service-site cum postwar German history site Care-Leavers Survivors.org @ www.care-leavers-survivors.org with regard to specific human rights violations - extra-judicial incarceration and "forced labour" and the profiteering therefrom by the postwar West-German State, the churches and private enterprise (between ca 1945 - 1975) - which should concern us all.
Absolute prohibition of all forms of forced labour / compulsory labour !, or not ? Was "forced labour" / "compulsory labour" / "work therapy" / "indoctrination by toil" / "labour discipline" / "pressganged labour" "hiring out of involuntary labour" / "forcing people to work without pay" ever permitted in the Federal Republic of Germany, or not? Was it ever permitted in the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980? Is it permitted in the Federal Republic of Germany today? The use of and the profiteering from forced labour are crimes under international law and they constitute a serious violation of human rights and an unlawful curtailment of human freedoms.
German wards of the state / institutionalised children used as slave labourers (in the former West Germany) demand adequate compensation and the making of appropriate amends; they don't want to be "paid off" / "to be bribed henceforth to keep quiet"; no "compromise" ! Deutsche Heimkinder / Kindersklaven verlangen eine anständige Entschädigung und Wiedergutmachung; keine "Abfindung" / "kein Schweigegeld", keinen "Kompromiss" !
Horrific (hidden) POSTWAR GERMAN HISTORY unearthed !!! Justice at last for abused wards of the state being detained and slave laboured in ‘institutional care’ in (West) Germany by church and state (a couple of million of them between 1945-1975+; the exact number has not as yet been able to be determined). However, whether these victims will in fact obtain justice remains to be seen.
THE FORGOTTEN CHILDREN AND JUVENILES OF POST-WAR WEST-GERMANY (1945-1985)
SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN – THE INSIDE STORY OF IRELAND'S INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS Mary Raftery and Eoin O'Sullivan – First published in 1999 – ISBN 0-8264-1337-4 – (425 pages). Well-researched non-fictional documentary-type account of Irish institutional child abuse – in this case perpetrated almost solely by Catholic orders of religion in institutions run for profit and enrichment of themselves, and to the total disregard of the needs of the children in their ‘care’.
Forgotten Children – The Secret Abuse Scandal in Children's Homes. [ Institutional child abuse in the UK ] Author Christian Wolmar – Vision Paperbacks . October 2000.
|
NB. This website is constantly updated. In order that you may always have the most current information at your disposal it will be necessary – upon every new visit to this site – to refresh each page you visit. Simply press simultaneously "Ctrl"+"F5". In this way you will ensure that you get not what is stored in the cache of your computer – but the Internet !
|