Frank Fournier, Ciała dzieci, które umarły na AIDS w kostnicy, Styczeń 1990. Tak zwane dzieci Ceaușescu. Ofiary pronatalistycznej polityki dyktatora.
""In Ceaucescu's Romania procreation was stimulated and abortion and birth control forbidden. Unwanted babies often ended up in orphanages where, for want of a better method, they received blood transfusions to build them up."
"The country’s orphanages began to fill up from the late 1960s, when the state decided to battle a demographic crisis by banning abortion and removing contraception from sale. Many of those in the orphanages were not actually orphans, but those whose parents felt they could not cope financially with raising a child.
The most horrific abuse took place in homes for disabled children, who were taken away from their families and institutionalised. At the age of three, disabled children would be sorted by hospital commissions into three categories: so-called “curable”, “partially curable” and “incurable”. The children who were sorted into the third category, some of whom had minor or no disabilities, were subjected to particularly brutal conditions.
Across the country, there were 26 institutions catering to the “category three” disabled children. Investigators from the institute picked three of them to investigate, and found shocking mortality levels among the children. “They didn’t die from the disabilities they had: 70% of the registered deaths were for pneumonia. They were dying of external causes that were preventable and treatable,” said Soare.
As the investigators continued, they discovered ever more horrific details. There is testimony of children suffering from frostbite, and of children literally being eaten by rats, being kept in cages or being smeared in their own faeces, said Soare.
The investigators logged 771 deaths they believed could have been prevented in the three facilities in the late 1980s, suggesting that the number across all 26 institutions over a longer period is much higher. “There is no document that proves this, but it is clear that the ultimate goal of this was an extermination campaign,” said Soare. The list of those the institute believes should be prosecuted for the deaths is classified, but includes employees directly responsible for abuse, and functionaries in the communist system."
#historia #starszezwoje #fotografia #nfsw
