Morning all
I was browsing through the BBC News this morning and was really shocked to see this article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16620597 . I guess I've been living too long in a cosy Swiss bubble

I had no idea that such things went on in Switzerland at all, let alone as recently as the 50s.

Before I go on, I'm sure a lot of people will jump on this and say "yes, but... and Germany and Austria and etc etc" which may be so but I'm not here to discuss those countries, I want to talk about Switzerland. The fact that this may have happened elsewhere doesn't change anything and certainly doesn't justify it.

Out of interest, has anyone seen the exhibition? Or the film "Der Verdingbub"? I'd like to hear anyone's views.

IMHO, I think it is very courageous of the "Verdingkinder" to go public about their experiences. There should be no stigma attached to openly discussing this terrible period of history and I wish them every ounce of luck in obtaining an official apology.

Swissinfo EN link of 2004:

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Home/Arc...ml?cid=3791220

Video link

Some happy endings according to Tagesanzeiger, Nov 2011. ( DE )

The film has been shown here since beginning of November 2011.

Unfortunately for me it was only released here in the Swiss German language, it is number 2 in the Bern charts,
http://www.cineman.ch/en/movie/2011/DerVerdingbub/

I would go & see it if it had sub titles in proper German or English. The DVD has the proper German language. It will be released in the French language in April.

New Swiss German Movie: Der Verdingbub

For me the tragedy is that these children came from disadvantaged back grounds, and were then kept down by the system. The practice stopped in 1950, and so all are now retired and most are dead. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdingkinder

Charles Dickens wrote about similar practices in London in the 1830s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens

.

Switzerland was definitely not a paradise 100 years ago. There were very good reasons why there was a mass exodus from 1850 - 1950.

Families who had too many children and not enough money were forced to give up some children because there was no other possibility. There was no social program to support these poor families, hence the Verding kids (which I believe are much like foster children.) There was no program to oversee if these children were cared for properly. Some were and some weren't.

Switzerland also went through a time where they took children away from the local gypsies, thinking these children would have a better chance growing up in a "stable" environment. This proved to be a disaster. I believe they stopped taking children away sometime in the 1970's.

Switzerland has come a long way.

I I remember well, it was already a big theme in the seventies after a tv report.

Was it really that recently? Even the reported 1950's date was shocking but the thought of this happening as recently as the 70's is almost inconceivable.

Not just in Switzerland, happened in Australia as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations

Seems to be a common theme: people want to do good, and perhaps on some level believe they are doing so, but in reality end up doing incredible damage.

A (swiss) friend of mine is very into 20th century Swiss history. He told me that 50 years ago the average family spent 50% of their monthly wage on food- and they weren't eating steaks, that's for sure. It was very hard here for a long time.

Heartbreaking about the kids. It's one thing to be impoverished and go hungry, another all together to be denied love or comfort of any sort while going hungry. I hope the exhibition depicts some of the decent families who took these kids in too (I simply refuse to believe that all treated the children abusively ).

There is currently a parliamentary enquiry underway in Australia talking about past adoption practices, removal of children from unwed mothers, and the demand for children for adoption.

The practice only ended in the 1970's.

http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/familie...ents/sec_0.htm

And yes, it's a recent phenomenon. The world changed a lot in the 1960's .... Switzerland only granted the vote (at the federal level) to women in 1971.

Some related links as food for thought:

Switzerland in the olden days

Gordon Brown to apologise for Britain's Child Migrants program

just putting them there from beginning is abusive...we're talking about children...what a disgrace for a country like this, and it kept going until the 70s...I had no clue about this...and I thought that women could not vote until late 70s was bad...

I also red that the Verdingkinder were forced to be sterilized...the case below, she was only 19 and this was in..1972!!!!!!!!!
sorry link only in german:
http://www.beobachter.ch/dossiers/ad...ssterilisiert/

Switzerland was a very poor country. Very very poor. Older Swiss friends of mine talk about their ordinary childhood, about going to school with cardboard in their shoes, newspaper in their shirts, short pants in winter, only one pair of shoes a year, for the eldest, the rest wore cast-downs. How their mothers worked all day out in the fields (hence the ringing of the church bells at 11am - to tell Mama time to make the midday meal)

I also knew one of those Verdingkinder - old lady Chef in local restaurant, and her childhood story was horendous.

No use in talking abusively about the past ... people did all sorts of horrible things out of ignorance. With hind-sight does it all now sound so ghastly. When I was growing up household dogs ate only kitchen scraps, and Vets were unheard of luxuries - a dog (or any pet) that got too ill, got a bullet.

I red that there are 10'000 of these children living in Switzerland today, and they never got compensated, e.g. Blocher do not want this...
I'm not sure whether they got an official excuse...

http://www.thata.ch/schweizermonatsh...ingkinder.html
The then Justice Minister Christoph Blocher (SVP) said in the debate, it applies to avoid that the state may also have to compensate Verdingkinder and administrative interns.
(google translate)

what a big big disgrace!

Slavery until the 1970s...who would have thought...

My mother, born in 1936, was one of four children of the local baker. From the age of seven she had to deliver bread, carried in a huge basket strapped to her back. Although their family belonged then to the middle class of their village, they mainly ate "Ribbel" (some kind of Polenta), with onion gravy and vegetable. Meat was seen on the table only occasionally. I remember that she washed the clothes untill the sexties by hand in these big washbowls you could heat up with wood.

They also castrated/sterilised men/women they considered unfit to have children.

Not surprising. There is still slavery in 2012.

There are those cases, too, of course.
Some families went to great lengths to treat the Verdingkinder like their own children (I read a newspaper article about it).
Most probably suffered, though.
It's easy to "have principles" and to be generous when you are affluent and well-off.
It's something different to stand by your conviction even under dire circumstances and when you yourself are facing poverty.

In the article I read, a former Verdingbub (a guy) reports that as a child, he was often sick and needed to see a doctor often.
At some point, the doctor was commenting to the father that he was spending more on the Verdingbub than on his own children (which were two or three) combined, to which the father responded that was "because he needs it most".

In light of this, I do believe we live in paradise today - even if we can't afford to buy meat at Globus everyday (or think we can't).

I spoke with a group of locals about this topic last night. One woman knows a Verding child personally. The child had a happy childhood in his foster home and went to visit his foster parents many years afterwards.

Remember, there were no social programs set up during this time. Switzerland was poor, education was kept at a minimum and many, many people were ignorant. Religion was more powerful than the government and many priests abused their position. Farmers, although quite often ignorant, had the availability of milk and vegetables and therefore were seen as a natural place for these children.

Not all farmers were cruel. My own grandfather grew up on a farm with non-siblings (due to the death of a mother) and all got along splendidly.

Edit:
For those interested in Switzerland's poverty and lack of social programs, here's an interesting book to read (in German):
http://www.chronos-verlag.ch/php/boo...&type=Kurztext

self-denial is a wonderful thing....

so children went from being hungry with their families to being hungry, beaten, sexually abused, sterilized etc somewhere else...sounds like a fair trade...