They called them the Protectors at that time, would call us into the room. We used to go to sleep at night they would come and tap you ‘Come along, come along, wake up. Come on, it’s your turn now. Come along. […] I was taken down the back steps and down into their little quarters, and then he would have a strap out and he used to beat me, and then he used to whip me with the strap and saying I was not a good girl, ‘bad girl!’, and then he would have his way with me. He would sit me on his lap and rock me on his lap, and then penetrate me.

    Valerie Stella Woods, Survivor, Gnowangerup Mission

    [Standing on steps of Parliament House] In 1905 the Act was put in place here. This same building where the ‘breed out the colour’ policy was initiated. Let’s not say our children were taken because they were bad parents. ‘Breed out the colour’ policy was the eugenics of this country, and initiated by A.O. Neville.

    Jim Morrison, Stolen Generation Descendant

    Mum had our last brother Dean, and when he was born, they took him off her, because we were in the mission. They took him from her. And even though he was in the same mission as Anthony, Timothy and Cynthia, he had no idea that they were his brothers and sister. And neither did they.
    And when I mention ‘stolen’ I’m specifically talking about our language, our culture, our totemic connections and our connection to families.

    Ezzard Flowers, Survivor, Marribank Mission

    When our kids were taken away the churches kept our kids. There was a lot of money involved. So the churches need to be made accountable too. Not only the government but the policies that allowed the churches to keep our children away from their parents.

    Howard Riley, Survivor, Mogumber Mission

    We all went through hell and back, and that’s why a lot of them died through alcohol poisoning, O.D. on drugs, car accident whatever, but you know I never got to see many of them before they passed on.

    Garry Ryder, Survivor, Marribank Mission

    We had to readjust into the community. We didn’t act like our people. We didn’t talk like them. We were different so we was more or less like outcasts. Out families could only feel sorry for us for what we went through, but as far as understanding, the only ones that understood what we went through were our brothers and sisters at the mission.

    Timothy Flowers, Survivor, Marribank Mission

    Fifty-seven percent of Aboriginal people in our state today are connected to the Stolen Generations people. So that’s every second Aboriginal person you walk past in the community, they have that trauma, that intergenerational trauma that’s impacting their lives.”

    Valerie Stella Woods, Survivor, Marribank Mission

    So you know we really need to bring that awareness into the justice system, into the government, you know, the government were the ones that put all these policies down in our past to make out live like this, to keep us oppressed, and we now need to empower ourselves, our children and grandchildren and we need to start healing them before they have children so that we can break this cycle of intergenerational trauma.

    Lorraine Pryor, Stolen Generation Descendant

    You know it’s a long time now since Bringing Them Home national inquiry happened. They found there was genocide against Stolen Generations people, a policy of genocide. Which is about the most serious offence that there could ever be under international human rights law. And there was an absolute clear duty on the state responsible to make reparations for that crime of genocide.

    Hannah McGlade, Survivor, Sister Kate’s Home

    My father and my mother never got the chance to be parents to me. I’m 66 years of age now and the only thing I can do to moving forward and to spare my children of the torment and the heartache and the trauma that I’ve gone through is always be there for my children.

    Brenda Greenfield, Survivor, Gnowangerup Mission
Nyutsia Floribunda
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 4 October 1932
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Clipping Aboriginies Increasing

Genocide in the Wildflower State” is a 59 minute documentary about a violent, state-run system of eugenics, racial absorption, and social assimilation in twentieth century, Western Australia.

For the more than six decades between 1905 and 1970, thousands of Aboriginal children in Western Australia were forcibly removed from their families.

Systematically organised by the State, overwhelmingly supported by West Australian society, generation after generation, for over sixty years — the State worked to destroy Aboriginal families, culture, and language, for the purpose of securing white, settler dominance.

In 1997 a National Inquiry called this for what it was — Genocide.

Stolen Generation’ Survivors give vivid and at times heartbreaking testimony of cruel isolation, abuse and humiliation in the system. Their accounts are supported by documentary evidence from state records, public archives and historical scholarship.

“Genocide in the Wildflower State” is truth telling and a demand for justice. It holds to account successive parliaments in Western Australia that have failed to make redress. It is about helping to heal the trauma in the Survivor community, and building understanding in broader society.

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Genocide in the Wildflower State was produced by

Yokai Healing Our Spirit

Western Australian Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation

Interviews

Watch further interviews from participants from the documentary.