Nazis separated me from my parents as a child. The trauma lasts a lifetime

[workinclasszero]

I know from experience that the Trump-sanctioned brutality at the US border with Mexico will scar its child victims for life
Yoka Verdoner Mon 18 Jun 2018 02.00 EDT

The events occurring now on our border with Mexico, where children are being removed from the arms of their mothers and fathers and sent to foster families or “shelters”, make me weep and gnash my teeth with sadness and rage. I know what they are going through. When we were children, my two siblings and I were also taken from our parents. And the problems we’ve experienced since then portend the terrible things that many of these children are bound to suffer.

My family was Jewish, living in 1942 in the Netherlands when the country was occupied by the Nazis. We children were sent into hiding, with foster families who risked arrest and death by taking us in. They protected us, they loved us, and we were extremely lucky to have survived the war and been well cared for.

Yet the lasting damage inflicted by that separation reverberates to this day, decades hence.

My grief and anger about today’s southern border come not just from my personal life. As a retired psychotherapist who has worked extensively with victims of childhood trauma, I know all too well what awaits many of the thousands of children, taken by our government at the border, who are now in “processing centers” and foster homes – no matter how decent and caring those places might be. We can expect thousands of lives to be damaged, for many years or for ever, by “zero tolerance”. We can expect old men and women, decades from now, still suffering, still remembering, still writing in the present tense.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/18/separation-children-parents-families-us-border-trump

[OhNo-Really]

1. I was separated and suffer insurmountable insecurities and PTSD

which is why I am peppering this sight.

I couldn't bond to anyone, even my own child.

Love and loss is too painful.

people can't imagine the inner harm this does.

[workinclasszero]

2. I cannot imagine the mental and spiritual damage done to these poor little children

ripped away from their parents by force and locked up in a prison, never knowing when or if they will ever see them again!

My God this is a monstrous evil that must be stopped NOW!

[iluvtennis]

3. Emotional damage on both side - parents and children - this is mental cruelty. No reason Trump

/his admin needs to separate the kids from their parents. Open family detention centers so they call stay together. (BTW, I'm against detention centers in principle, there has to be another way to handle things while the paperwork for asylum is processed).

Trump/admin is just heartless. How would Trump/Melania feel if Barron found his way to one of the detention centers like that German kid did in The Boy With Stripped Pajamas (...great movie...) and poof he was never to be seen again.

[yurbud]

5. I don't think the "Boy in the Striped Pajamas" scenario would work on Trump...

I once thought a good way to get racists to sympathize with the black history of oppression was make a movie like Twelve Years a Slave with the races reversed, white slaves and black masters.

But racists would watch & say, "You see? That's why we cain't let the blacks get the upper hand."

[iluvtennis]

9. I hate to admit, but you're probably correct

[Honeycombe8]

4. A moving story. The harm is as I thought.

Just taking a child from his parents under such circumstances is harmful. Thank you for your moving story. I feel for the little kid you were and what you had to go through.

[BlueJac]

6. K&R 100 times

[moondust]

7. What steps would you take

if you wanted to create a new generation of MS-13 members hostile to Americans?

[BlancheSplanchnik]

8. Creating enemies faster than....

Well.......

after all the inflicted trauma and years to resent such evil treatment.....

Republicans are a monstrous evil

[Pachamama]

14. We did such a good job creating Al Quaida and ISIS/ISIL with the Middle East, Trump wanted to top it

...with doing the same with the brown people south of our border....

He has succeeded this goal by leaps and bounds for certain.....

[voteearlyvoteoften]

10. Knr 😢

[TryLogic]

11. Urgent need to stop Trump

Donald Trump is psychologically unable to avoid fighting. He is unable to cooperate although he can pretend in order to pull a scam. He has said he loves to fight, any kind of a fight. I think his need to fight had been well established by the time he was in 6th grade. We have known for a long time that he is dangerous. Now that we are moving (with the children) into the realm of the types of things the Nazis did in the 1930s, the danger is critical. The need to do something about him is extremely urgent.

[gopiscrap]

12. My mom's story is different to yours, but identical in the fact

that Hitler forced the German children in large cities to depart from their parents. My mom was a refugee for the duration of the war and a displced person for 11 months afterwards. Those 29 months away from her parents at age 9 affected her for the rest of her life and even overflowed to affect my life as well. She had to have her leg amputated as a result of the walk through frozen areas for days at a time, she was sickly all her life and died at age 39 when I was 15

[OhNo-Really]

13. Oh dear, hugs to you

Separation trauma of one child that becomes a parent can affect generations thereafter.

Your mom's story is so tragic

And now HHS supports a new program to keep kids in abusive homes instead of foster care because separating can be more traumic.

Boggles,the mind