Treffpunkt ehemaliger Heimkinder | Regenbogenstadt

Zitat

Dear [ name ]. – Hello [ family member / relative.].

Thank you for your nice and informative mail. The one you mention a while back I can’t recall.

I apologise for not staying in regular contact with you and [ name ] --- or at least putting in an appearance, virtually or in person, now and again. Sorry.

I myself am on top of the world physically and mentally; [ name.] is so so. We are managing.

I haven’t heard from [ name ] and her hubby [ name ] in Berlin ( ie. just outside Berlin ) in a while, not even at year’s end / beginning of the new year.

I keep busy doing battle – that battle you are asking about. No compensation of any kind, however, is in sight. Church and state aren’t sorry about anything ( only paying lip service ) and are not paying even a cent of compensation to anybody.
They – ie. church and state – have graciously agreed ( "voluntarily" ! – and with no legally binding agreement !) to finance out of their own resources and state coffers minimal help for those victims living on the poverty line only ( which each victim must satisfactorily establish ), and only to those victims who are still suffering as a consequence of having suffered in institutional care in their childhood and youth ( which each of them must prove:that today’s ongoing suffering is as a direct result of institutional childhood mistreatment or abuse and being forced to work without pay [ "forced labour" they refuse to allow it to be called ! ] ). In return for this gracious charity extended on behalf of church and state to the victims ( ie. to those only who fall within the "conditions of entitlement" ), each victim if he or she wishes to avail themselves of this help, must sign a release releasing church and state from all future legal liability relating to the past including a promise never to attempt to sue in that regard. Each victim must sign away all their future rights. Furthermore, each victim must sign an authority authorising the opponent ( church and state ) unlimited access to all their medical and social security records over the past several decades. To make such demands of the victims under these circumstances is totally unheard of and probably altogether illegal. But some of the victims, who are desparate enough and silly enough will undoubtedly sign --- most will not. So the fight goes on, at a political level, at a publicity level and at a legal level, all of which I am directly involved in. I work with regard to all of that and more up to 18 hours a day 7 days a week – via the Internet. My workload is the heaviest during the night, ie. when it is night time in Germany ( time difference is 9½ hour; we are always 9½ ahead of them ) and the enemy is snoring away in their beds.

The media – all media – in Germany is controlled by the church and the state and they do not truthfully inform the public about many things, including their post war history and the crimes they have committed against children and youth in institutional care over several decades after the war under both political systems ( WEST and EAST ). The German media tows the official line; they either are censored or they selfcensor ( knowing what the government does not want them to report on ). So all of the reporting or most of the reporting is left to the victims and victims associations themselves --- so we are all very busy, daily, reporting on the internet, ie. only those of us who are capable of such work ( because most of the victims are not well edcucated, having been denied a decent education whilst institutionalised ). That is why I am always so extremely busy – busy helping others ( many, many, many of them – who I don’t even know and who don’t know me, and often don’t even know of my existence ). I supply a desparately needed community service that is invaluable to this particular group of victims and I do so voluntarily and without renumeration. And I do so in German of course. There are only one or two other people who are as fluent in both German and English as I am. But even we don’t get by without consulting dictionaries in both languages occasionally ( actually more than occasionally ). So now you are in the picture about what I do on a daily basis.

I will try and visit [ relative ] on one or other occasion. I’ve already checked where it is. When I do visit it will probably be an on the spur of the moment thing when I am passing by in the area. I cannot at this stage name a particular date or time in fear of that I may not be able to stick to it. Is [ relative ] still able to talk reasonably coherently or is her dementia progressed to such a stage where she is no longer able to recognise and distingish one person from another?

You keep cool in the hot weather. As I am getting older too, I prefer the warmer weather; the cold does not agree with me so much; my skin gets particularly bad then.

OK, [ name of family member / relative ] – I must finish up now so I can send this off to you without further delay. Have been meaning to write to you since yesterday midday, but only just got around to it now – and then it took a fair while, because I had to attend to several other urgent things in between ( and that in German – changing back and forth is not easy ).

Love from your [ from me: family member / relative ]

Martin