Nearly 30 years have passed since East Germany's homes for "difficult
children" were shut down. It has taken this long for the former inmates
to speak out about their ordeals, and, even now, they're not always
heard.
Renate Viehrig-Seger is standing in front of a photo of herself as a 17-year-old at an exhibition about East German children's homes, but she doesn't linger. It brings back profoundly painful memories, and she needs a smoke. Now in her late 50s, she hadn't talked about her past for decades until, a few weeks ago in Leipzig, she spoke at a hearing on the findings of an independent inquiry into the sexual abuse of children in the East German dictatorship, which, the study shows, was widespread in children's homes and juvenile reformatories.
http://www.dw.com/en/inmates-of-east-germanys-juvenile-homes-speak-out/a-41143335
Renate Viehrig-Seger is standing in front of a photo of herself as a 17-year-old at an exhibition about East German children's homes, but she doesn't linger. It brings back profoundly painful memories, and she needs a smoke. Now in her late 50s, she hadn't talked about her past for decades until, a few weeks ago in Leipzig, she spoke at a hearing on the findings of an independent inquiry into the sexual abuse of children in the East German dictatorship, which, the study shows, was widespread in children's homes and juvenile reformatories.
http://www.dw.com/en/inmates-of-east-germanys-juvenile-homes-speak-out/a-41143335