Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

Bonds broken foreverEven for those who trace, locate and meet their families, the lost years can neverbe fully recovered and the lost bonds can never be fully healed.I couldn’t deal with it, I couldn’t accept my father and his family. They were likestrangers to me.Confidential evidence 132, Victoria.... your siblings ... your family – you can never get that back once you’ve lost it. Thepeople are there, yes, but you can never get it back.Confidential evidence 321, Tasmania.I met my natural siblings at my mother’s funeral but there was too much water underthe bridge – 20 years – for us to have a real relationship. The biological ties were there,but that wasn’t enough. We all tried to make a go of it but it just didn’t work. I supposeAboriginal people can get their land back but cannot get their family back. We are stillstrangers even though we have tried to reunite. We have barriers between us created bysomething other than us. Being taken like we were gave us all a sense of mistrust andinsecurity.Confidential evidence 314, Tasmania.I found my mother at the age of 13. I remember the day I knocked on the door and shewas in shock. She did not want me to stay with her because she had never told her newman about me. So she sent me to Sydney to aunties and uncles. Even though Iremembered them before the homes, and all the good times, it just didn’t feel the samewhen I was with them. They also felt like me – that we were strangers ... The family wasgone in only a short time when I was away in the homes. It could never be replaced nowbecause it was lost.Quoted by Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 on page 113.I went with my sister to Redfern [aged 17]. I’m walking up the street and my cousinsays, ‘That’s your mum over there’. I’m standing there against the wall ... I had noconnection with her. None whatsoever. So that was it. Never bothered about it. Neversaid hello to her. I stayed against the wall. [Ten years later met her mother.] I didn’t getclose to her. I didn’t do anything. But I spoke to her and I know who she was then. Ididn’t have any inkling for her. I didn’t get near her.Confidential evidence 405, Queensland: NSW woman removed in the 1940s at about 6months to Bomaderry Children’s Home; transferred to Cootamundra at 8 years; put out towork at 15.Some people find it hard to reconnect with family because they fear beingseparated again. They don’t allow themselves to become too attached.... I mean, you realise that basically apart from us, all we’ve got is sort of ourselves.Because you’ve got no real parents that you can get close to or relate to. That’s sort ofwhere it actually ends, that I feel. You’re too scared to show any emotion towards any