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Taken under fascism, Spain’s ‘stolen babies’ are learning the truth
- Zardoz84 4y agoI know this very well... My sister could been stolen before I born.
- DSingularity 4y agoReminds me of the Yemenite stolen babies. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2016-07-31/ty-article/hundreds-of-yemenite-kids-were-abducted/0000017f-f067-dc28-a17f-fc773c230000 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2016-07-31/ty-article/hu...
- elliekelly 4y agoIt’s also happened fairly recently with US adoptions of Cambodian babies: https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kbyeg/cambodian-adoption-fraud-united-states https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kbyeg/cambodian-adoption-fr...
- stevenwoo 4y agoThere's also the case of US immigration services separating children from their parents 2016-2020 and not tracking where those children were sent in conjunction with their parents' identity.
- dqpb 4y agoI still think about this on a regular basis. Particularly the toddler who died under the "care" of Border Control. Absolutely sick.
- lordgrenville 4y agoWorth noting that it is hotly disputed if this actually happened, or if it was just a handful of cases. I don't really have an opinion - my understanding is that it's plausible but there is currently no evidence for it. (Except for the government acting quite suspiciously every time it's asked to investigate.)
- jaden 4y agohttps://archive.ph/5G0Nr https://archive.ph/5G0Nr
- yazzku 4y ago
- theysavedspain 4y ago
- yazzku 4y agoWhat an absolute pile of BS you just barfed there. Franco saved Spain...for example, by asking the German Condor to bomb Guernica and using state-sponsored media to accuse the communists instead? Tell me more about saving a country...
- colechristensen 4y agoBoth the winners and the losers can be the bad guys.
- yazzku 4y agoYeah, people die during civil wars. But it's not the republicans who overthrew a second republic, and Franco did certainly not 'save' anything.
- unity1001 4y agoIf the Church is acting as a vehicle for a military coup that seeks to depose the democratically elected regime, then it is not invulnerable from the law.
- adolph 4y agoAt some point someone has to expect something Inquisition-like in Spain, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-da-f%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-da-f%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spanish_Inquisition_(Monty_Python) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spanish_Inquisition_(Monty...
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- syrusakbary 4y agoThis has been a big topic in Spain in the last 10 years. It's great to see that most of the cases are being opened to the public now. Note: I'm from Spain While it's true that this happened under the fascist rule of Franco, I'm not sure that the fascists had nothing to do with it, so I think the article title is a bit misleading. In my view, this issue was mainly caused by two things: 1. Imbalance of power, where powerful entities were able to "buy" influence over the hospital personel (usually with some relation with the Church) to get the babies of poor people that will not be able to fight back (because of lack of knowledge or resources) 2. Lack of a formal registry log of births and hospital happenings If any of these two things are addressed, I'm pretty sure we will hardly get into a similar situation again.
- unity1001 4y ago> I'm not sure that the fascists had nothing to do with it How will large-scale abduction of babies and deceiving of the parents by telling them that their baby died can happen without the cooperation of the state - openly or clandestinely. Especially considering how a lot of those related to these incidents belonged to the Catholic church and they were not only protected by the fascists but were an actual appendage of the regime...
- Barrin92 4y agodirectly from the article: "But one of the most lasting abuses of the era was borne by children. In the late 1930s and 1940s, Antonio Vallejo-Nájera, a leading psychiatrist in the regime who was trained in Nazi Germany, promoted the idea of a Marxist “red gene” carried by the children of Franco’s left-wing opponents. The gene, he said, might be suppressed by removing children from their mothers and placing them with conservative families. Franco’s men soon began the abductions on a large scale. They targeted children orphaned by Franco’s firing squads and took newborns belonging to women who had given birth in jail as political prisoners. All were sent to be raised by regime loyalists. The era of the “stolen babies” had begun." the transfer of the babies, predominantly from low class families to high ranking Catholics, allies of Franco's regime of course makes the ideological connection clear. Antonio Vallejo-Nájera was explicit about the political/eugenic character of these transfers: "Vallejo’s conclusions were that the only way to prevent the racial dissolution of the Spanish was to take away the red children from their mothers in places "away from democratic environments and where the exaltation of bio-psychic racial qualities is encouraged". By 1943, 12,043 children had been taken from their mothers and handed over to orphanages or Francoist families" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Vallejo-N%C3%A1jera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Vallejo-N%C3%A1jera
- no-reply 4y agohttps://archive.ph/5G0Nr https://archive.ph/5G0Nr
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
- steve76 4y ago
- motohagiography 4y agoMedicine and psychiatry often seem to be at the center of these regimes. Is there sometihng about doctors and ideology that goes so closely together? Maybe it's the pretext the regimes to suspend rules and rationality. German doctors began a "euthenasia" program several years before the war broke out, and no governing body of theirs seems to have historically been above using prisoners for medical experiments. Even recently, doctors even consult on enhanced interrogation techniques, and seem to favour some pretty heavy handed public health policy. As a profession, is there something fundamentally wrong with many of them that we tolerate for their expertise?
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoI was going to say the Catholic Church often seems to be at the center of these regimes, but I guess we all see things through our own lens.
- wyager 4y ago
- saboot 4y agoThe pope may not have been, but several german priests such as Herman Muckermann certainly gave german Catholics a way to support eugenics and race theories.
- Thorrez 4y agoSome priests did, but overall the Catholic Church was very against eugenics.[1] On the other hand eugenics was quite popular among US intellectuals.[2] Forced sterilization of the mentally disabled is still legal in the US.[3] Herman Muckermann was at one point in favor of forced sterilization, but turned against it when the pope denounced it. Herman Muckermann was also against Nazism and euthanasia. >In 1933, he left his post at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, as he opposed Nazi biological racism and the belief that the Nordic race was superior (Dietrich, 1992).[4] [1] https://academic.oup.com/jah/article-abstract/103/2/498/1750859 https://academic.oup.com/jah/article-abstract/103/2/498/1750... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterilization_law_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterilization_law_in_the_Unite... [4] https://eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/tree/5233675d5c2ec5000000003b https://eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/tree/5233675d5c2ec500000...
- trhway 4y ago
- hagibborim 4y ago
- qikInNdOutReply 4y agoAnd tradition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Sov...
- trhway 4y ago>This is fake It is kind of hard to "assume the best" in case of your comment, ie. that you are supposedly just not aware what i'm talking about given that the info is just one google search away. Anyway, given the very familiar style, impeccable logical consistency and convincing strength of that an argument of yours i suppose that you're a Russian and thus can read this for example (i just don't have nor time nor desire to work through very slow Rutube to find the TV reports, and the text article is more useful for non-Russian speaking people here who can use Google Translate on it): https://www.infox.ru/news/251/270756-rossiane-smogut-usynovlat-detej-donbassa-po-uprosennoj-sheme https://www.infox.ru/news/251/270756-rossiane-smogut-usynovl... (by the March 10 date of the article they already report 1090 children taken away to Russia since beginning of the war on Feb 24, and they also report there about expected law changes to simplify adoption of Ukrainian children into Russia) By the way, what Russia has been doing here - forceful taking away of children by a nation A from a nation B and bringing those children up in the culture and spirit of the nation A - is a cultural genocide. >and flamebait. i guess you are an expert here. --------------------- This is my original, GP, comment which seems to have been flagged: These days we have Ukrainian children being massively taken away into Russia. In particular from Mariupol where Russians killed something like 50K civilians. On state TV they even happily report how those children get new Russian families. As an example of an end result - there was a POW who was taken away in 2014 who was drafted into Russian army and sent to fight in Ukraine.
- boomboomsubban 4y agoThis doesn't seem drastically different than what was openly happening to Native Americans in the US until the passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978. By some estimates, as many as 3/4ths of Native American children were taken from their families for adoption or foster care. And that's assuming the law stopped the practice, some states still see many Native American children shipped to non-Native communities to get federal welfare money.
- EdwardDiego 4y agoLikewise, the Stolen Generation in Australia.
- lisper 4y agoCanada too. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/canada-apologizes-to-aboriginal-natives/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/canada-apologizes-to-aboriginal...
- _trampeltier 4y agoSwitzerland too https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdingkinder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdingkinder
- hef19898 4y agoOr Ireland. And just to leapfrog, Germany under multiple governments throughout history. It seems to be common practice to take children away from their families, if said families are not part of the group in power.
- aa-jv 4y agoSee also, the White Stolen Generation, where poor mostly unmarried (Catholic) mothers were forced - across the British Empire - to send their children, never to be seen again, off to Australia. To make it white. A truly vulgar and heinous facet of Australian/British history - alongside the already heinous acts committed against the original owners.
- givemeethekeys 4y agoWhat an incredible thing to do - to steal someone's child and raise it and love it as your own. Why didn't they adopt orphans? Were there none?
- lifeisstillgood 4y agoThe article touches on this - the practise began with orphans (from the regiemes executions!) and illegitimate children from poor single mothers handed over to the church. But as social mores changed in the sixties, single parenting was not such a social stigma and so the "supply" dried up. At this point the church had people "alongside" management of hospitals etc, so the institutions were compromised, and the next more awful step could go forward. It's interesting to compare the institutions being compromised by putting idealogues in hierarchical power with Hitler and the SA / SS. It seems that is the "playbook".
- pyuser583 4y agoSingle parenting wasn’t stigmatized in 1960s Spain?
- qikInNdOutReply 4y agoMost orphans are damaged goods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_alcohol_spectrum_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_alcohol_spectrum_disorde... It seems understandable, to not pour yourselve into 15 years of trouble for nothing.
- actionfromafar 4y agoI think you are mixing things here, this [0] is probably more insightful. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=33004828&goto=item%3Fid%3D33003434%2333004828 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=33004828&goto=item%3Fi...
- pessimizer 4y agoThese children were often made orphans before being adopted.
- srcmaxim123 4y ago
- drekipus 4y ago
- kgwgk 4y ago> they were openly called fascist By whom? Some political factions before the war were close to Italian fascism but the after-war dictatorship was not fascist in any meaningful sense.
- drekipus 4y agooh I just meant that it seems to me that everyone is quite open to saying it was fascist Spain, including (as far as I know) francoists themselves. I don't mind the title, and I know that it was only semi-fascist, but the main point I'm making is that the title seems to bring about connotations that might not warrant it (from my casual observations).
- kgwgk 4y ago> including (as far as I know) francoists themselves Are you referring to someone in particular?
- anvic 4y agoFranco was so bad that a law had to be enacted recently to stop people from cherishing him.
- drekipus 4y agolaws don't dictate morals. laws were enacted in Australia to stop collecting rainwater to drink. What are the bad parts? I ask as a genuine question, the only bad things I can find is poor treatment of jews and killing of political opponents, which is pretty similar to everything else that was going on at the time, and seems tame contrasted against communist powers.
- goldorak 4y agoGermany have similar laws but more restrictive, there is always ppl that support fascist regimes, like you with this comment.
- ivolimmen 4y agoThis story reminds me of a movie I once saw. I thought it would be a comedy (because of an actor in it) but the movie was extremely sad but I was hooked and needed to see it. I really recommend it. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2431286/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2431286/
- s_dev 4y agoIt's a great film to watch aside from the relevancy to this topic.
- dang 4y agoAll: quite a few comments in this thread swerved into religious flamewar and generic ideological flamewar. Those are not allowed on HN. They're nasty and repetitive, the two qualities we most want to avoid here. Therefore, please don't. If you're going to comment on HN, please make sure you're up to date on https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and using the site in the intended spirit, which is curiosity. That is a quite different quality.
- BrandoElFollito 4y agoI am surprised that so many written traces were left behind. It was not something you wanted to make public so I would have expected swapped birth certificates (with the older ones destroyed). It was as if there was no longer term thinking (just the immediate action to cover up the abduction/fake pregnancy here and now)
- aa-jv 4y agoWhite Stolen Generation (Australian variant), checking in. My mother was physically, emotionally and pyschologically tortured by her own government for the simple fact of having had me, out of wedlock. I was taken as a baby, to be relocated to another family - a "proper, white one", that met the standards of the government at the time. Mum fought and screamed and kicked down the doors, and got a lawyer. And, a little while later, she got me back. Australias dark relationship with the criminal UK's baby-stealing human trafficking government is a story that has yet to be fully told... not to mention the atrocities committed on my aboriginal friends during the same period, another heinous circumstance from a fundamentally racist government.
- soco 4y agoWas this standard practice, or was your case a failure of the system? We have in Switzerland the KESB - children and adults protection they call themselves - which as concept is great but they run totally unsupervised so sometimes situations like the one you lived happen under our eyes. Example? Baby taken away without right to recourse right after birth from mother living on social support, under suspicion she was taking drugs (no other motivation).
- aa-jv 4y agoIt was standard practice. The victims were blamed for their own immorality which was used to justify the crime against humanity.
- MomoXenosaga 4y agoBasic Catholic practice. Out of wedlock sex is ultra haram.
- _HMCB_ 4y agoI can’t imagine anyone doing this to a mother/family. It sickens me. The desperation your mother must have felt is unbearable to think about. I’m glad she fought for you. Thanks for sharing your story.
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- squarefoot 4y agoThis is not just history, there are numerous reports of mass children abductions happening in Ukraine since the Russian invasion. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/14/ukraine-kidnaped-children-russia/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/14/ukraine-k...
- sofixa 4y agoRussians are really intent on setting the clock back. Fighting in the Donbass, trenches, poorly equipped human waves, genocide through attacks on civilians and kidnapping of children. It's like Putin and co are stuck in WW2 (at best).
- saiya-jin 4y ago
- confidantlake 4y agoAs a fellow non Russian slav, with brothers like that, who needs enemies?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dang 4y agoThis sort of ethnic/nationalistic slur is totally unacceptable on HN and if you post anything like this again we will ban you. I'm shocked that any longstanding HN user would stoop to this degraded and shameful level. Yes, there's a war going on; nonetheless this line is not so hard to draw and you crossed it terribly. No more of this, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: from your recent comments it also looks like you've been using HN primarily for political/nationalistic battle. That's not what this site is for and we ban accounts that do it, so please stop.
- trhway 4y ago
- aminanandakv 4y ago