an, strong bonds with his family members could not be established. "
Although supposed neglect provided the justification for removing children from their parents, many children never experienced such terrible conditions and abuse until they were taken away. p> "And for them to say she [mother] neglected us! I was neglected when I was in this government joint down there. I didn't end up 15 days in a hospital bed [with bronchitis] when I was with me mum and dad. "p> "These are people telling you to be Christian and they treat you less than a bloody animal. One boy, his leg was that gangrene we could smell him all down the dormitories before they finally got him treated properly. "
The luckier ones were adopted; others went to foster families, sometimes a succession of them. But even those who were fortunate enough to be placed with loving families felt and regretted the effects of separation (see the discussion of "benefits" below). Often too, the adoptions or fostering arrangements didn't work out. Possibly the most notorious case of this was that of James (Russell) Savage, who was not only removed from his family, but from the country when his adoptive family moved to the USA. Like most stolen children, Russell had severe problems growing up, and ended up thrown out on the streets at the age of twelve. Worse was to come: several years ago, after getting involved with drugs and alcohol like so many other stolen children, he ended up in jail for life on murder and rape charges, narrowly escaping the death penalty. The scandal surrounding this case put a spotlight on the whole practice of stealing Indigenous children.
In keeping with the objectives of the assimilation policy, many children were not told of their Indigenous background. Children were bullied into adopting white ways of living and thinking, only to suffer abuse and denigration at home and school for the darkness of their skin. Others were taught racist attitudes towards Indigenous people only to find - often because of constant taunting about their complexion - that they themselves belonged to the people towards whom they felt disgust. The denigration of all things Aboriginal was one of the most common experiences reported to the inquiry.
"During this placement [with a foster family], I was acutely aware of my colour, and I knew I was different from the other members of their family. At no stage was I ever told of my Aboriginality ... When I'd say ... 'why am I a different colour? 'they would laugh at me and tell me to drink plenty of milk, 'and then you will look more like us.' The other sons would call me names such as 'their little Abo' and tease me. At the time I didn't know what this meant, but it did really hurt ... "
"We were told our mother was an alcoholic and that she was a prostitute and she didn't care about us. They [foster family] used to warn us that when we got older we'd have to watch it because we'd turn into sluts and alcoholics, so we had to be very careful. If you were white you didn't have that dirtiness in you. It was in our breed, in us to be like that. "p> But generally speaking, those who fared the worst were those - The vast majority - who were put into mostly Church-run institutions, such as Sister Kate's Home, Kinchela Boys 'Home, Cootamundra Girls' Home and so on. The experiences from these institutions remain like a nightmare. Many inmates remember the constant hunger:
"There was no food, nothing. We was all huddled up in a room ... like a little puppy-dog ... on the floor ... Sometimes at night time we'd cry with hunger, no food ... We had to scrounge in the town dump, eating old bread, smashing tomato sauce bottles, licking them. Half of the time the food we got was from the rubbish dump. "
On top of that, there were cruel punishments for the slightest "Offence":
"I remember once, I must have been 8 or 9, and I was locked in the old morgue. The adults who worked there would tell us of the things that happened in there, so you can imagine what I went through. I screamed all night, but no-one came to get me. "
"I've seen girls naked, strapped to chairs and whipped. We've all been through the locking up period, locked in dark rooms. I had a problem of fainting when I was growing up and I got belted every time I fainted ... I've seen my sister dragged by the hair into those block rooms and belted because she's trying to protect me. "
The infamous A. O. Neville (WA Chief Protector 1915-40) wrote a book in 1947 in which he listed some of the punishments meted out by his staff - Tarring and feathering, chaining girls to table legs (this was done by "an ex-Missionary, and a good man too "whom Neville clearly regrets having to dismiss), shaving heads and so on.
But some stories were even more horrendous:
"Coot...
