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The Stolen Children - Their Stories John's Story John's story is bleak and heartbreaking. It is told in plain and vivid detail - the image of small boys being herded in behind the iron gates of the orphanage, their heads shaved, their numbers stamped on their clothes, their little suitcases containing only their Bibles being cast into flames. And after that, they are beaten and sodomised and turned against each other. Prisoners. John says he will always be a prisoner as long as his records remain in the archives. This is Confidential evidence number 436. We didn't have a clue where we came from. We thought the Sisters were our parents. They didn't tell anybody - any of the kids - where they came from. Babies were coming in nearly every day. Some kids came in at two, three, four days old, not months but days. They were just placed in the home and Christian women ran it and all the kids thought it was one big family. We didn't know what it meant by 'parents' cause we didn't have parents and we thought those women were our mothers. I was definitely not told that I was Aboriginal. What the Sisters told us was that we had to be white. It was drummed into our heads that we were white. It didn't matter what shade you were. We thought we were white. They said we couldn't talk to any of them coloured people because you're white. I can't remember anyone from the welfare coming there. If they did I can't remember...we hardly saw any visitors...None of the other kids had visits from their parents. No visits from family. The worst part is we didn't know we had a family. When we got to a certain age, like I got to, ten years old...they just told us we were going on a train trip...We all lined up with our little ports with a bible inside...We really treasured that, we thought it was a good thing that we had something...the old man from La Perouse took us from Sydney, well actually from Bomaderry to Kinchela Boy's Home. That's where our problems really started, you know! This is where we really learned that we weren't white. First of all they took you in through these iron gates and took our little ports off us. Stick it in the fire with your little bible inside. They took us around to a room and shaved our hair off. They gave you your clothes and stamped a number on them. They never called you by your name; they called you by your number, which was stamped on everything. If we answered an attendant back we were 'sent up the line'. Now I don't know if you can imagine seventy-nine boys punching the hell out of you, just knuckling you. Even you brother, your cousin. They had to, if they didn't do it, they were sent up the line. When the boys who had broken ribs or broken noses they'd have to pick you up and carry you right through to the last bloke. Now that didn't happen once, that happened every day. Before I went to Kinchela, they used to use the cat-o-ninetails on the boys instead of being sent up the line. This was in the thirties and-early forties. Kinchela was a place where they thought you were animals. You know it was like a place where they go around and kick us like a dog. It was just like a prison. Truthfully, there were boys having sex with boys. But these mongrels didn't care. We had a manager who was sent to prison because he was doing it to a lot of boys, sexual abuse. Nothing was done. There was a pommie bloke that was doing it. These attendants - the boys told them - they wouldn't even listen. It just happened...I don't like talking about it. We never went to town...the school was in the Home...all we did was work, work, work. Every six months you were dressed up. Oh mate! You were done up beautiful white shirt. The welfare used to come to Bridge Street, the main bloke, the superintendent, to check the home out - every six months. We were prisoners from when we were born...The girls who went to Cootamundra and the boys who went to Kinchela - we were all prisoners. Even today they have our file number so we're stil1 prisoners you know. And we'll always be prisoners while our files are in archives. Taken from: The Stolen Children. |
