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personal stories from around the world.

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They don't speak with words, they

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speak with guns. Lives Less Ordinary

0:57

from the BBC World Service. Find

0:59

it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

1:06

Hello, I'm India Rakeson and welcome

1:08

to this bonus episode in the

1:10

documentary from the BBC World Service.

1:13

Now I host the BBC's Lives

1:15

Less Ordinary podcast, which seeks out

1:18

extraordinary life experiences from around the

1:20

world. We're going to bring

1:22

you an episode of Lives Less Ordinary here whenever

1:24

we can, but to catch more

1:27

of our shows, just search for Lives

1:29

Less Ordinary wherever you find your BBC

1:31

podcasts. I

1:36

googled what

1:39

came up as the name of

1:41

the facility. I

1:43

couldn't believe it. Really?

1:46

Is that it? That's

1:48

it. Yes, I think. I

1:51

think that's the place. I

1:54

had these memories that I'd never

1:56

spoken about and then here they

1:58

were. everything

2:00

exploded inside of me. I ran out

2:02

of the house. I wanted

2:05

to really scream it from the

2:07

mountaintops. In

2:11

one swift internet search, a spectre from

2:13

the past flashed through Edie Marquez's head,

2:16

an image of a pale yellow house standing

2:19

in the shadow of the snow-capped Austrian Alps

2:21

high on the slopes of the In River

2:23

Valley. It's been turned

2:25

into flat-mouth, but its walls

2:28

hold a terrible secret, one

2:30

that was kept from the world and

2:32

from the children like Edie here, who

2:34

lived between them years ago. You're

2:41

listening to Lives Less Ordinary. I'm

2:43

India Rachison. Today's episode,

2:46

Behind the Locked Door. Edie

2:50

Marquez is an award-winning photojournalist from Austria,

2:53

now living in the US. She's

2:55

been capturing the lives of people with her

2:57

camera since the 80s, but she

3:00

spent most of her life keeping a dark chapter

3:02

of her own story hidden from view,

3:04

shut away in her mind, too

3:06

painful to revisit. She

3:09

even kept it from a therapist who she credits

3:11

with saving her life. Only

3:13

now, in her late 50s, is she starting

3:15

to open up, because this

3:17

search on the internet a few years

3:19

ago burst Edie's past wide open and

3:22

she had to decide if she could confront it. Edie,

3:29

it'd be so lovely to see you. How are

3:31

you doing? Hi. Good. I'm

3:33

a bit nervous. I'm nervous. No, don't be

3:36

nervous. Don't be nervous. I promise this is

3:38

going to be very, very relaxed. Okay.

3:40

Oh, did it just stop

3:42

recording? Oh, did it? Oh no.

3:44

No, no, no, it didn't. It just, no. Her

3:51

nervousness is so clear, but it's

3:53

so understandable. She's not spoken much

3:55

about this publicly and

3:58

well, it's destabilizing. for her.

4:01

Evie's in a good place now and happy, but

4:04

a word here that what she recounts

4:06

in this conversation about her childhood is

4:08

distressing. Her early years, even

4:10

before we get into the story of the

4:12

yellow house, were turbulent, lonely,

4:15

difficult. When she was

4:17

born in Austria in the mid-60s, her mother

4:19

wasn't married, and like in many places

4:21

at that time, this was a stain on both

4:23

the mother and the child. Evie

4:26

was sent away and placed in and

4:28

out of foster families, orphanages and children's

4:30

facilities. Austria holds little to

4:32

no fond memories for her, and when she

4:34

moved to the US as an adult, she

4:36

vowed never to return or utter a word

4:38

of German again in an

4:40

attempt to keep the difficult memories from

4:43

resurfacing. But something deep

4:45

in her bones had been keeping the

4:47

score. I'm

4:50

afraid in the dark, so I just

4:53

keep the lights on at all hours.

4:56

As an adult? Yes, now even. It's

4:58

just never dark in my house, so

5:00

there's always light when I come home.

5:04

I have this aversion to

5:06

yellow. When I was in

5:08

Innsbruck, every child got a color

5:10

assigned, and my color was yellow.

5:13

So the color yellow became kind

5:15

of like that constant

5:18

reminder of being there.

5:20

It's a challenge for me

5:23

to have yellow become my

5:25

friend. I try to

5:27

remind myself that it is

5:30

a color of the sun

5:32

and of flowers and of

5:34

light, and just hoping that

5:37

I get over this aversion.

5:40

To try and rewrite the past and take the

5:42

phobia away, Evie even bought

5:44

bright yellow sunflowers regularly as an

5:46

adult. But all that work was

5:48

eclipsed one day in 2021 when she made a

5:52

monstrous discovery. My daughter

5:54

Lily and her friend were in the

5:56

house in the afternoon, so

5:59

they were asking me, about my childhood.

6:01

I forget even what

6:24

Then they went on and did whatever

6:26

they were doing, going upstairs in her

6:28

room. And having

6:31

that fresh on my mind,

6:33

this hesitation I googled,

6:36

Söllenstrasse, in

6:39

Innsbruck. I've always remembered

6:41

the addresses generally of my childhood.

6:44

And when you looked it up, you

6:46

saw a word that you'd not seen

6:48

before. Yes. What

6:51

came up is, the

6:54

kinder beobachtum stratsion. The

6:57

name of the facility. What

6:59

does that mean? It's

7:01

the children's observation station. And

7:04

that rang through. And

7:10

then I read further.

7:13

It was kind of like, really? Is that

7:16

it? That's it. That's the

7:19

kit that must be it. And

7:22

then Dr. Maria

7:24

Novak-Fogel. Yes, I think

7:27

that's her. I think that's the place.

7:33

The children's observation station.

7:36

This was a new phrase to Evie. She'd

7:38

never heard it called this before. The

7:40

image description, the person who ran

7:43

it slowly started to resurface

7:45

in her mind. And there

7:47

was more. Way more. There

7:49

were detailed reports from other people who'd

7:51

been there, accounts that struck a chord

7:53

with her own trauma. Evie

7:56

started to read them in disbelief. She

7:59

always thought that the place she she'd been sent to had

8:01

been a therapeutic centre for troubled children,

8:03

but now she was saying its whole

8:05

purpose was much more sinister. Some

8:08

of the practices, the way it

8:10

was described, it all started to

8:13

make sense. It

8:15

was just really extraordinary

8:17

to have this incredible

8:19

confirmation that this completely

8:23

horrible place existed.

8:26

And not only did it exist, but it existed

8:28

for reasons beyond what

8:31

you had spent decades thinking. Yes.

8:34

And the penny drops of, hang

8:37

on, this wasn't about taking

8:39

care of me or correction,

8:41

it was a mass experiment. Yes,

8:44

yes, it was terrifying. I

8:46

was so overcome by all

8:49

this information that I ran out of

8:52

the house and up and down

8:54

my block. I couldn't believe it.

8:57

It just all, it's just

8:59

like I hadn't thought

9:02

about this in so long.

9:04

I had these memories that

9:07

I'd never spoken about and then here

9:10

they were and it's really

9:13

like everything exploded inside of me.

9:15

Like I just, I had to get out, I had to

9:18

get out into the air. It

9:20

just, it made me so angry that

9:23

I wanted to really scream

9:25

it from the mountaintops. I

9:28

was immediately confronted with

9:31

my past in a very

9:33

profound way and I immediately

9:36

accepted the challenge. For

9:39

me, after decades and decades

9:41

of holding this shame, I wanted

9:44

to turn the tables. Once

9:46

you're confronted with this kind of information, you

9:49

cannot unhear it

9:51

or unknow it. You have

9:54

to deal with it or

9:56

it deals with you. Now,

9:58

she wanted to know. Experiment

10:01

that you've been taught us in this

10:03

house in Innsbruck. What if they don't?

10:06

Eat, he decided to reach back in time

10:08

and find out. Before

10:15

Easy had even. Stepped set in the

10:17

yellow house she lived with a foster mother

10:19

called. Any. Any

10:23

didn't like me. She.

10:26

Had a bed and breakfast. She was

10:28

married to Eric. And Ernie

10:30

Heads, you know tourists come

10:32

and stay at her bed

10:34

and breakfast and she made

10:36

it like she was the

10:38

suffering person. This is very

10:40

difficult child. How

10:43

old were you when you arrived

10:45

for? For. Little

10:48

yeah, a little. Yeah,

10:50

as far back as I remember,

10:52

she started accusing me of breaking

10:54

these things in our house. So.

10:57

I became too difficult child also in

10:59

the village. On

11:01

New Years you go from house to

11:03

house and you see a little verse.

11:06

Children. Is a good mood to

11:08

serve. My. First the cistern.

11:10

I did that and she used

11:12

to child and people would say.

11:15

Who. Is Studio. Two hundred. And

11:18

two zero side would get a quarter.

11:20

And I would get like a nicole. Cause.

11:24

She was the biological child so she

11:26

was worth more. To.

11:29

Pleased would take me out of school

11:31

regularly and school to me for being

11:33

so difficult and giving. My.

11:36

Mother such a hard time. And.

11:39

I always promised to be better. Or.

11:41

And I get. Church service he

11:43

would choose. Put. The communion

11:46

into my mouth and say that I

11:48

was. Dirty. Couldn't put

11:50

it in my hands. Of

11:52

Eve, so I tend really.

11:55

I. Didn't have anywhere to go. I

11:57

didn't have anyone to turn to. I

12:00

to tell anybody. Anything to.

12:03

So. Even when the. Child

12:05

welfare services came. I was so

12:07

afraid I hid in the closet.

12:10

I would never ever have told

12:12

them. How bad things are.

12:15

Because. And he told me that the

12:17

I turned it it will be so much worse. Over

12:21

seed vault with that. Daughter. Like.

12:24

That. Their daughter was ah. Shy.

12:28

And. Quiet I was more.

12:30

ah. Tomboyish and

12:33

can a wide eyes the

12:35

kids like to see. If

12:37

it's great, my knees and bloc. Countries.

12:40

And and I was just kind of bed. Why

12:42

do you think they have to do it? Sounds like

12:44

a i don't know. It's. Puzzling.

12:48

Puzzling. Did. You have any

12:50

wants to be have any friendship in your

12:52

life? No. No.

12:55

Not really. There. Was my

12:57

post stock aunt who left

12:59

in the house above hours.

13:01

She was sympathetic to me.

13:04

So. That was nice. Song

13:08

Know what? I

13:11

just signed unbearable like carrying. A

13:14

May snow and that was physical abuse is

13:16

well within their. Yes,

13:19

There was physical abuse she would

13:21

beat me up the slack, cooking

13:23

spoons and often accused me of

13:25

breaking things around the house. Like

13:28

a wobbly chair or or or

13:30

it's some mark on a wall

13:33

or a dish that was kind

13:35

of stained like everything was my

13:37

fault and she would call me

13:40

and accuse me of causing this

13:42

and. When. I deny

13:44

it. She hit me until the admit to

13:46

it. And eventually. I.

13:49

Just started to admit to everything.

13:52

And. Often. She would

13:54

lock me in the cellar. But

13:57

you know she looked like sex. and the

13:59

she did. No pretty toilet.

14:02

In watch me. So

14:04

I am myself. Ah, And

14:07

then I have to wash to close by

14:09

hand. In the sink. Easy.

14:13

So. There were like a lot of

14:15

psychological kind of. Torture.

14:17

It was a humiliation. Did

14:20

you know that in this book was coming?

14:22

Did you know that he might be sent

14:25

away? Know when ernie.

14:27

Got me some this as a

14:30

foster family when I was for

14:32

I came this a box of

14:34

things from my stay there i

14:36

guess and and he put the

14:38

books in the attic and she

14:40

always pretended to get that box

14:42

and send me on my way.

14:45

So. I became very afraid of that

14:48

box. She was always the box. The

14:50

box. Became like this. Symbol.

14:53

Of like where I'll be. That

14:56

bucks stayed in the attic. For

14:59

then one night in late December. Nineteen

15:01

Seventy Three. Aged just eight

15:03

years old. Without. Warning

15:05

easy was taken to the Yellow

15:08

House in Innsbruck. It felt

15:10

like middle of the night. It was dark

15:12

out. And

15:21

someone came on crafts me

15:24

out of my bed of

15:26

us in the bottom bunk

15:28

and transferred me too hard.

15:33

On he was dark and it

15:36

was cold and I was really

15:38

afraid but nobody spoke, nobody said

15:40

anything and he drove and we

15:43

drove for a long time. And

15:48

I don't remember who was

15:50

in the car, but I

15:53

vaguely remember my foster mother,

15:55

ernie. Being there when

15:57

the a rise in in. I

16:03

was given and of institution

16:05

clothing this big blue more

16:07

type underwear and and the

16:09

teens wrap around skirt. I

16:12

remember the inside of the

16:14

house of like would every

16:16

there on the walls which

16:18

paneling. And Dallas a

16:21

big fish tank in the hallway.

16:23

And the villain the second floor

16:25

and that was a large room

16:28

disobey window. They

16:36

were that's stacked on top

16:39

of each other, developed his

16:41

medal caught and each hot

16:44

head of color on it

16:46

to identify whose child's courses

16:49

which bed. And my

16:51

caller was yellow. I

16:59

don't remember. Exactly.

17:02

When I realized it was a

17:04

mental hospital. I

17:08

just remember. Adults in

17:10

white coats. Of

17:12

a strong smell of flu and

17:15

as a loudspeaker over the door

17:17

during the day there was just

17:19

like a lot of should is

17:21

sounds. A

17:30

lot of ringing and and. Alarm.

17:33

And then. To

17:35

the ride with the bathroom and again

17:37

I had a yellow those and like.

17:40

To stress on my. Tough

17:42

to identify it and

17:44

we weren't allowed. To talk.

17:48

And a language that was

17:50

allowed with abbreviated. For.

17:53

He had to ask permission before we

17:55

did anything. So for example, we'd have

17:57

to say please to. Space. or

18:01

when we ate, you

18:03

sit at the table and you

18:05

say, please spoon before you

18:07

move to pick up a utensil.

18:10

So the meal times

18:12

were downstairs in the dining

18:15

room. So we would

18:17

line up in our room

18:19

on the second floor and

18:21

then file downstairs into the

18:23

dining room. And there were

18:26

big round tables. There's

18:28

a supervisor on every table, no talking,

18:32

and you had to eat what was in your plate. Any

18:35

food they left would be presented to

18:37

them at their next meal, however rotten

18:39

it became. Pretty much

18:41

every sadistic element that ruled Evie

18:43

and the young children's lives was

18:45

the brainchild of the psychologist who

18:47

ran the facility, Dr.

18:50

Maria Novak-Fogle. She

18:57

was this very austere woman. She

18:59

was wearing these large glasses and

19:01

had a nurse's uniform, and she had

19:05

her hair tightly tied back in

19:07

a bun, and she looked very

19:09

stern. I

19:11

found out that she's a Nazi-trained

19:13

doctor and has

19:15

that ideology. She

19:18

was an authoritarian. She was obsessed

19:21

with masturbation and sexuality,

19:24

and she hated children. But

19:28

she was revered in Austria. She

19:30

was considered an expert in

19:32

child adolescent psychiatry in Austria,

19:36

and she had close ties to the

19:38

Austrian welfare system. So there

19:40

was like this endless supply of children. Dr.

19:45

Novak-Fogle had the ultimate say over

19:47

what happened in the Yellow House. She drew

19:49

up a list of rules that all the children

19:51

had to follow. of

20:00

such things is like checking our underwear

20:03

for evidence of our bathroom habits.

20:06

And it's

20:08

just a very

20:10

intrusive environment. You're

20:12

being watched. You're being investigated. You

20:15

want to know your dreams. You

20:18

have to sit in a room and recount your dreams.

20:21

So it's nowhere. You

20:23

can't hide anywhere. The

20:26

children just lived in fear. There was

20:28

zero tolerance for any resistance. And Evie

20:30

can vividly recall a really disturbing moment

20:32

when she stepped out of line. I

20:36

remember this one time when we

20:38

were allowed to line up to

20:40

get something sweet. I

20:43

was holding up my apron. And

20:46

they put something into my apron. And on my

20:48

skirt, I don't know, I was holding it up.

20:51

And I saw ants on me. And I freaked

20:53

out. And I must have

20:55

screamed. I was just

20:57

lifted up by

21:00

a man in coats and taken

21:02

outside. And I remember

21:05

being placed on a

21:07

coal tile floor and given a shot. An

21:10

injection? Yes. A

21:18

shot. These seem to happen

21:20

quite regularly. But Evie and the other

21:22

children weren't told why or what

21:24

they were for. Nor, it seems, were

21:26

any of the parents or guardians. Evie

21:29

assumed it was just pure punishment.

21:33

But when she started her research a few

21:35

years back, she found out something truly shocking.

21:38

Dr. Novak-Fogel had administered

21:41

strong sedatives, including Rohitnal,

21:44

to the children and a strange

21:46

hormone called epiphyzm, an

21:48

extract from the brains of cattle. When

21:51

Evie made the decision to journey back to

21:53

Austria in 2021, she met

21:56

academics who gave her some clarity on

21:58

this drug and its alarming purpose. A

22:01

pithysan is given to cows

22:03

in heat. Well, that's what it

22:06

was designed for. And

22:09

it was used by Dr.

22:11

Maria Novak-Fogel to treat

22:13

children who masturbated.

22:16

What to suppress sexual feelings

22:18

in young children? Yes, she

22:20

was obsessed. We

22:23

were her test objects. She treated us

22:25

like animals. She drugged

22:27

us with powerful medicines. It

22:29

was absolutely shocking to learn this.

22:31

So, yeah, so she sexualized children.

22:34

And as Evie learnt, a

22:36

pithysan was completely experimental. No

22:39

one knew what the long-term effects might

22:41

be on humans. The

22:43

more that Evie learned about Dr.

22:45

Novak-Fogel, the angrier she became. She

22:48

found out that the doctor's approach to

22:51

dealing with problem children seemed to be

22:53

influenced by the Nazi view of supposed

22:55

defects being genetically based. Couple

22:58

that with a very conservative strain of

23:00

Austrian Catholicism at the time, and it's

23:02

felt danger for children like Evie. I

23:05

learnt that ideologically it

23:07

was just remnants from national

23:10

socialism. She was deeply Catholic.

23:13

Being the child of a single

23:15

mother, I definitely fit

23:18

that mold of her beliefs

23:20

that children like I

23:23

are less than. I met one

23:26

victim whose mother was Romani. It

23:29

was really the access

23:31

that she had to the vulnerable children,

23:34

to those who really needed support.

23:37

We were undecirables. We

23:40

were the outcasts of the

23:42

society. Evie

23:45

was told that Novak-Fogel viewed children

23:47

who wet their beds, masturbated, were

23:50

left-handed or stuttered as being born

23:52

bad. She believed that

23:54

the so-called defective children needed to

23:56

be corrected rather than cared for.

24:00

To protect Austrian society, Novak

24:02

Vogel made it her personal

24:04

mission to re-mould these

24:06

young children into productive,

24:08

compliant, sexually regular individuals.

24:11

The nights were most terrifying really,

24:13

so we would lie in

24:16

bed and the cover

24:18

came to our armpits and our

24:20

arms were over the bed to

24:23

make sure that we didn't touch

24:25

ourselves. Just hands away from

24:27

the body completely? Yeah, no,

24:29

it makes me so angry to think about. I

24:35

was a bed-wetter and the Dematricists

24:38

had an alarm

24:40

built into them that alerted them

24:43

to when the children wet the bed, so

24:45

that's how they knew. People

24:50

in white coats come, take you

24:52

across the hallway, then you

24:55

have to stand in the bathtub and

24:58

get an ice-cold shower as

25:01

punishment and then

25:03

you have to stand in the corner of

25:05

the hallway where the

25:07

only night came from this fish

25:09

tank. It

25:15

was scary to go to sleep. There

25:18

was public shaming. The children

25:20

had to stand around the

25:22

bed the next morning of the child that

25:24

had an accident and

25:27

humiliated and laughed at the child. The

25:30

view of young girls sent to the centre who'd

25:32

been sexually abused was truly barbaric.

25:35

They were branded as having personality

25:38

disorders, seen as responsible

25:40

for their abuse by seducing

25:42

the perpetrators. Edie

25:44

learned that one girl at the Yellow House had

25:46

accused her father of sexually abusing her and

25:49

she was institutionalised as a liar.

25:52

So what went on there wasn't advertised

25:54

widely, it wasn't a

25:57

total secret. State authorities knew

25:59

and cared for her. and Novak Vogel had

26:01

published papers on her test with the Pivzun. Evie

26:05

spoke to experts who helped her build a picture

26:07

of why all of this was even allowed to

26:09

go on. She heard that

26:11

the post-war denotification of Austria was deeply

26:14

flawed, and some of its ideology

26:16

just still muddied the waters long into the latter

26:18

half of the 20th century. Novak

26:21

Vogel's fixations were part of this, and

26:23

the vulnerable children of the Yellow House,

26:26

which she ran for decades, were her

26:28

guinea pigs. It

26:30

was completely shocking to find out that

26:32

it went on until 1987, and

26:36

it was incredibly shocking

26:39

to find out that it affected

26:41

over 3,650 children. That

26:45

was really stunning to me

26:48

because it is

26:50

such a lonely experience to

26:52

go through something like that, that

26:55

it didn't even occur to me

26:57

that it could have happened

26:59

to thousands of other children as well.

27:03

If you're feeling pretty hooked into this

27:05

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bluenile.com code LISTEN. From

28:21

the BBC World Service, I'm India Rakeson

28:23

with the story of Evie Maghez, who

28:25

in her 50s went in search of

28:27

the truth about the mysterious institution she'd

28:30

been sent to as a child back

28:32

in her native Austria. It's

28:34

not like just something that happened to

28:37

me. It's something that happens across the

28:39

country. You

28:42

must have felt, I mean, you didn't

28:45

know anyone, I suppose. You knew nobody. No.

28:48

You were totally alone. Yes. I

28:50

vaguely remember other kids, but

28:53

there was no connection. Kids

28:56

came and went, but like

28:58

had no idea what happened. I had

29:00

this one strong memory of a child

29:02

jumping out the window. I

29:06

just remember the aftermath

29:09

and always wondering what happened to that

29:11

child. The

29:17

child observation station at the Yellow House was allowed

29:19

to run from 1954 to 1987, 33

29:24

years. Towards

29:26

the end of its existence, a

29:28

director named Kurt Langbein made a

29:30

documentary for Austrian TV exposing some

29:32

of its practices to a wider

29:34

audience. The exposé happened in 1980.

29:38

The fact that it went on for

29:40

another seven years is shocking. The

29:43

fact what happened to Kurt Langbein when

29:45

he did the exposé was shocking.

29:48

He was about to lose his job

29:50

and he was going to be banned

29:53

from Tyrol. That was the

29:55

response. That's what we are dealing with.

30:00

closed down in 1987. Dr

30:02

Novak-Fogel continued to lecture at

30:04

universities and was even awarded

30:06

a medal by the Catholic

30:08

Church before her death in

30:10

1998. It's no surprise that the

30:12

children under her control might never

30:15

have questioned these practices. I

30:18

really blamed myself for

30:20

having been placed in

30:23

Innsbruck to begin with. I

30:26

think a lot of children tend

30:28

to do that. I thought it was

30:30

my fault. I got

30:32

my childhood records and

30:34

they're very detailed in

30:37

observing each child any

30:40

details how I masturbated.

30:43

That is why I think I'm

30:45

sure I got the perfect sound.

30:48

How this drug affects a growing child isn't

30:51

known. But what is clear is

30:53

the long lasting impact that Evie's time in

30:55

the Yellow House and the rest

30:57

of her turbulent childhood have had on her life.

31:00

Evie never knew why she'd been sent to

31:03

the Yellow House in the first place or

31:05

why four months later she was unexpectedly sent

31:07

back to live with her foster mother. When

31:10

you came out of the Yellow House and

31:13

were going back to Annie's, how

31:15

did that feel? It

31:17

was terrifying. The same evening

31:20

at the dinner table, Annie leaned

31:23

over and pointed at

31:25

a little knack in the chair and

31:28

said, oh how did that get there?

31:31

And my heart sank. I

31:33

knew what that meant that

31:35

it started all over

31:38

again. Did you think

31:40

about telling anyone, talking about what happened to

31:42

you straight afterwards? No,

31:44

I couldn't because the

31:47

village was a

31:49

very Catholic village.

31:52

It's like this insulated

31:54

culture where being the

31:56

child of a single mother made you

31:59

the child. child of a whore

32:01

and therefore that's how you

32:03

were treated. So

32:06

everybody knows each other. Like my foster

32:08

mother would make sure that everybody

32:10

knew I was in a mental hospital. So

32:13

I was really a black sheep.

32:16

So I couldn't tell anybody because

32:18

it was kind of also accepted

32:20

around me that there

32:23

was something wrong with me. Evie

32:25

had no loving care amidst all the turmoil

32:27

of her childhood. But when she

32:29

escaped from under her foster mother's tum in her

32:31

late teens, she finally found

32:34

some comfort and support. I

32:37

made my first really

32:39

great friends and their

32:41

names are Jimmy and Andy and they

32:43

came back from Vienna and they're 10

32:46

years older than I and

32:48

Jimmy drove to Innsbruck

32:50

with me like when

32:52

I was maybe 19. Wow, you

32:54

decided to drive there. We decided to drive there

32:56

and I wanted to get my records. I wanted

32:59

to get an explanation under

33:01

what conditions did they admit me

33:03

there under what

33:05

pretense and I went

33:08

there and they just opened their

33:11

little slider

33:13

window at the door

33:16

and closed it and

33:21

I didn't try harder.

33:24

I guess I didn't try harder. After

33:27

that, it's just like

33:29

trying to live with it. It's like really trying

33:31

to forget it and not let it be

33:34

a destructive force in your life. She

33:37

tried to lock it away. Evie moved to

33:39

Vienna to go to university but

33:41

then she couldn't face it when she had to go back

33:43

to Annies again. I just knew

33:46

I had to leave. I had

33:48

to leave so that I got

33:51

this job as a wine steward on

33:53

a cruise ship and

33:55

that's how I left Austria. You

33:58

arrived in New York in the 1980s. Did

34:01

you kind of had an idea that you'd like to

34:03

get to New York? No,

34:05

not at all. I

34:07

just absolutely loved it. I just

34:10

absolutely loved it instantly. You

34:13

know, it was the first place

34:15

where I felt like you're

34:17

not judged. Like everyone has

34:20

a story. It

34:22

must be very different to small town

34:25

Austria. Very different, yeah.

34:27

Intimidating. And it was just like,

34:29

well, I'm just going to try and stay here

34:31

for a little while. Yeah. And

34:34

you had a gift, didn't you, from

34:36

your friend Jimmy? A gift that became

34:38

very important to your life in New

34:40

York. Tell me about that gift. Yeah. So

34:43

Jimmy and Andy came to visit me once in New

34:45

York and to give me a camera. And

34:49

that became my

34:52

passion. So I started wandering

34:54

the streets in New York. And

34:56

that's how I kind

34:58

of discovered my love for

35:01

photojournalism. It's nice

35:03

to focus on others and

35:06

focus out in the world and

35:08

tell other people's stories. Try

35:12

to understand other people's

35:14

lives. Then maybe understand

35:16

your own more. Evie

35:19

had escaped. She had new

35:21

horizons, new connections. But

35:23

the abuse was always there in the background. I

35:27

think for me personally, it was

35:29

really the relationship to my own

35:31

body that was mostly

35:33

affected. I

35:35

couldn't really hold or comfort

35:37

myself. And I

35:40

developed an eating disorder. I'm

35:42

sorry. That's horrid, Evie. That's

35:44

awful. Yeah. So just

35:46

learning to eat was really a

35:49

great struggle. I

35:51

met this really fantastic therapist in

35:53

New York. And I really

35:55

credit her for saving my life. I

35:58

was on a downward spiral. with

36:01

my eating disorder and

36:03

needed help. Having been at

36:06

the kindle biobach institution, I really I

36:08

was never going to seek out the

36:10

help of psychologists

36:12

because of

36:15

my mistrust against doctors

36:17

and psychiatry in general.

36:21

So it took me to my

36:23

late 20s when I

36:26

finally was able to go to

36:28

therapy. I

36:30

needed somebody to help me put

36:32

out the fire. I was in

36:34

crisis. I needed to learn

36:36

how to be in this world but

36:40

I couldn't really go

36:42

back to the kindle biobach

36:44

institution. To me, it would

36:47

be incomprehensible for anyone

36:50

and I would think there's nothing

36:52

I can say to really

36:55

illustrate the horror of that place.

36:58

Nothing will convey what

37:00

is placed it to me. In the

37:04

end, it just makes

37:07

you feel very vulnerable and exposed

37:10

and it's not

37:12

something you talk about because

37:14

of the deep shame that's associated with

37:16

it. Because regardless

37:19

of your circumstances, the

37:21

other person will make assumptions about you

37:24

by virtue of just having been in a place like

37:26

that and that also

37:29

ties in with future

37:31

relationships. Can the person

37:34

really hold that you have

37:36

been through something like that? Her

37:39

work, new friends, the therapy all

37:41

helped. She also began dating and

37:43

in 1998, Evie married a fellow

37:45

reporter and soon she was pregnant.

37:48

I was really afraid

37:51

that I am like

37:53

my biological mother and I want

37:56

bond with my baby and I

37:58

never understood how she did it. he could have walked

38:00

away. And I

38:03

was very afraid there

38:05

would be something wrong with me. I went

38:08

to New York to have my baby. I

38:10

was living in Washington, D.C. already, and

38:13

Sting was performing in Central

38:15

Park while I was in labor.

38:18

And it turned into

38:20

kind of an

38:24

emergency C-section, about

38:26

like 12-hour labor.

38:28

And Sammy is born

38:31

and I'm lying there with

38:33

my arms stretched out because of

38:36

the C-section. And

38:38

I'm sobbing and I can't

38:40

stop sobbing and I'm just

38:43

crying and the nurse comes

38:45

over and says, what's wrong?

38:48

He says, everything

38:50

is okay with my baby. And I was

38:53

just crying. I'm so

38:55

relieved that I love my baby. So

39:00

that's like the most amazing memory I

39:02

have of Sammy being born. Yes.

39:07

It was just so wonderful. So much

39:10

love. So

39:17

like I guess when I think of falling

39:19

in love, like that's like it.

39:23

Yes. Yes. I'm

39:29

like right there with you, like oh my God,

39:31

what a huge moment for you. Huge,

39:34

like you don't even realize how

39:36

afraid you are until it kind

39:40

of like washes away from you. Of

39:44

love, of your capacity to love. Yes.

39:46

To feel that love that

39:49

everybody talks about. That you

39:51

think like somehow

39:53

you're broken because you didn't

39:55

experience that as a child.

40:00

Evie's children mean the world to

40:02

her. In 2021, in that

40:04

moment when she started to search for answers

40:06

and discovered the truth behind the yellow house,

40:09

it was her children who were first to come for her. Evie

40:12

was now surrounded by what she had never

40:14

had, family, as

40:17

well as another surprise edition. I

40:21

got this letter saying somebody

40:23

claiming to be my sister is looking

40:25

for me and I was very excited

40:27

and I said, yes, I would like

40:30

to have contact. And then

40:32

Baba Rella is her name. She's

40:34

an artist in Zurich. She called

40:37

and it was really just this

40:40

absolutely wonderful person, lovely

40:43

and warm and kind. And

40:46

she was adopted in Switzerland and

40:49

grew up just a couple of hours from

40:51

me. We decided to meet

40:54

and I flew to Zurich and

40:56

I still remember walking from

40:58

the plane to the kind

41:00

of pickup area where she was going to

41:03

come and see me and I

41:05

saw her through the glass and

41:07

we put our hands against the

41:10

glass and I felt

41:12

like my insides were on fire.

41:14

It was amazing to

41:16

have a blood relative for the first

41:18

time in my life. And

41:21

Jimmy and Andy were there and

41:23

they brought champagne and we sat on

41:25

the floor and we opened the

41:27

champagne. We looked at

41:29

each other, we compared our faces and

41:31

our height and our body and our

41:34

hands and we hugged. It

41:36

was wonderful. Evie's children

41:38

and her sister Baba Rella all went with

41:40

her when she returned to Austria in search

41:42

of answers to the horrors of her past.

41:45

They found out that there was an official

41:47

commission looking into what went on inside the

41:50

yellow house and Evie submitted a

41:52

statement. One day when I

41:54

was checking my email I see

41:57

a note from a Tyrolian

41:59

official. It is a letter,

42:01

an official letter of apology, and

42:04

it said, what happened to you should

42:06

have never happened. I can

42:08

only promise to learn from your story. Well,

42:12

when I was reading these words, I wanted to

42:14

print it out and carry it around with me.

42:18

It was really important. It

42:20

felt like there

42:23

was an official recognition, what happened to

42:25

so many of us, that

42:28

it was really now considered

42:30

wrong and unspeakable.

42:33

And not long

42:35

ago, it was

42:37

considered completely acceptable. You

42:41

did eventually meet other victims didn't

42:43

you? You met three of them

42:45

for lunch. I mean,

42:48

I can't even imagine how that must have felt.

42:50

What was that like for you? It

42:53

was extraordinary to

42:55

meet these three other women.

42:57

I've also talked to two men

43:00

online who have

43:02

gone through this. And

43:05

these women were really amazing

43:08

and strong and have

43:10

endured so much. And

43:12

I was

43:14

going to say their lives were broken

43:16

by this, but they're also

43:19

incredibly courageous and strong,

43:21

but they have

43:23

suffered greatly from insprick. And

43:26

it was just amazing

43:29

to compare memories. It's

43:31

validating in a sense too that

43:34

it's like, yeah, that's why this is so

43:36

hard. But when you're just

43:38

by yourself with these memories, why

43:41

is this so hard? Why is this so hard

43:43

to overcome? For Evie's

43:46

journey to face her past wasn't over

43:48

yet. There was still the question of

43:50

her foster mother. your

44:00

foster mother, you found out that she was

44:03

still alive and you organized to go and

44:05

meet her. That's

44:07

quite the decision to make. Why

44:10

did you feel meeting her was

44:13

a good idea? What

44:15

did you want from that? You

44:17

know, I learned that she was still alive

44:20

and after learning everything

44:23

I did about the Tindabi

44:25

Obahdenstätjön and then confronting my

44:27

history, it felt

44:30

like it would be really important for

44:33

me to confront her because

44:36

she has played such an outside

44:38

role in my life. I

44:41

have had nightmares about

44:44

her or her house my entire

44:47

life. When you

44:49

finally meet her, what

44:51

do you see? She's

44:54

surprisingly friendly because

44:56

I expected more than anything that I

44:58

will only see her for like 10

45:00

seconds and then I'll be thrown out.

45:03

That was really a surprise. I

45:05

was ready to confront something really

45:08

scary and then

45:11

you go in and there's like this old

45:13

lady sitting on the bed kind of welcoming

45:15

and happy to see

45:18

me and to meet my children. So

45:21

disorientating for you. What was

45:23

said, what has stayed with you? How

45:26

I didn't challenge anything that she

45:28

said and one of

45:31

the things that she said is that

45:33

we both suffered and why did I

45:35

not say how did you

45:37

suffer, honey? How did you suffer?

45:40

Like I don't understand what she meant by

45:42

that. Do you feel angry? I guess

45:44

I feel many things. I feel angry,

45:47

I feel sad, I feel determined. When

45:49

she apologizes to you, she's crying.

45:51

She's crying. You put your hand on her

45:55

to comfort her. Yeah. You

45:58

know, she lived off... full

46:00

life. She's in her 90s,

46:02

she's in a nice home. I

46:04

feel like I

46:06

solicited the apology. You

46:09

know, she didn't find

46:11

me to apologize. She

46:13

didn't initiate any contact

46:16

or anything. I

46:19

don't wish her ill. I

46:21

just, I don't forgive

46:24

child abusers. No. Watching

46:28

your children grow, all through them,

46:31

a world away from your experience

46:34

as an infant and a kid, what was

46:36

that like for you? It

46:39

was extraordinary. It's really

46:41

the most incredible experience of my

46:43

life. Each one of them, they're

46:46

so unique and just so grateful.

46:48

It's just been such

46:50

an incredible gift. And to

46:52

be able to create this family and

46:56

really community as well, has been

46:59

beautiful. It sounds like

47:01

community is quite important to you and your family,

47:03

isn't it? I think your house is quite famous

47:05

in the neighborhood. Yeah, my

47:07

house is famous in the neighborhood.

47:10

It's got its own nickname, I believe. Yeah,

47:15

my house, I was like the house where

47:17

teenagers hung out. I love

47:19

kids and I think having

47:22

lived in an orphanage came in quite handy.

47:25

I have heard that your house has got

47:27

a nickname of the Wayward Station. Oh yes.

47:29

Yeah, my friend Katie calls you that. I

47:33

bet you love that. I bet you love that.

47:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's just fine with me. You

47:40

did actually go back into the yellow house on

47:43

your travels in the last few years.

47:45

I did. That is another extremely brave

47:47

thing to do. Did

47:50

you ever think you would walk inside that house again? And

47:52

what did it feel like when you did? Never.

47:55

I was never

47:57

going to come back to Austria. to

48:00

speak German again and I

48:02

surely was never going to go back

48:04

into the Kingdom of the Obachtenkste Thiun.

48:07

So it was incredible. It's

48:10

an apartment building now but from

48:12

the outside when we

48:14

walked by it, it stirred

48:16

up some memory. And

48:19

you went inside, didn't you? Your children waited

48:21

outside and you went inside. Yeah,

48:23

I went inside and yeah, it

48:26

was just extraordinary. I go inside

48:28

the belly of the beast. I

48:31

didn't see any apartments but the

48:33

inside, the staircase was still kind

48:35

of where it was before and

48:40

you know, I'm feeling differently

48:42

now than I did a

48:44

year ago or two years ago.

48:47

It's like, it really has changed

48:49

kind of how I feel about

48:51

things. It's kind of this whole

48:53

process of unearthing all

48:56

this. It feels like it's really

48:58

kind of changed me. I sleep

49:00

well and more confident. I'm

49:03

in a good place. You

49:08

got hold of a file of some documents in

49:11

Austria at the time when you went to visit the

49:13

Yellow House and it's

49:16

from a pile of records from around that time.

49:19

At the

49:21

bottom of one of these documents, an

49:23

official had made an assessment and

49:27

it said, a minor is courageous

49:29

enough to assert herself in

49:31

life. Were they right?

49:37

Yes. Yes, they were right. Yes,

49:40

they were right. Thank

49:43

you. Evie

50:05

Mages, my huge thanks to her

50:07

for sharing her story. That's

50:10

all for this episode. I'm India

50:12

Rachison, the producer of this episode of

50:14

LIES LESS ORDINARY was Edgar Madacott, and

50:17

our editor was Rebecca Vincent. Remember

50:20

that normally LIES LESS ORDINARY won't be

50:22

in the documentary podcast, so if

50:24

you'd like to hear more episodes such as

50:26

The Girl from a Trailer Park who made

50:28

it big in Silicon Valley, only to find

50:30

the unicorn company she was working for was

50:32

built on a fantasy, then

50:35

you can search for LIES LESS ORDINARY, wherever

50:37

you get your BBC podcasts. LIES

51:08

LESS ORDINARY brings you remarkable personal stories

51:10

from across the globe, from people who

51:13

chased their dreams. No one knew that

51:15

I was going to travel by bike.

51:17

If I had told them that I

51:19

was riding a bike to Egypt, they

51:21

might have said that it was impossible.

51:23

To people who've lived through nightmares. When

51:26

in jail in Thailand, I made a

51:28

promise to myself in that jail, that

51:30

when I'm home, I'm going to volunteer

51:32

somewhere. LIES LESS ORDINARY from

51:34

the BBC World Service. Find

51:36

it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.