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

    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

    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

    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

    When we tried to tell someone about the abuse, we were told, “There’s some things God does not want you to talk about. How dare you.”

    Former inmate, New Norcia Mission

    I never got my Mum; I never had her in my life. [visibly anguished] Because I was aiming that she would be with me for the rest of her life, you know? But ay, I was able to get over that trauma.

    Gail Yorkshire, Survivor, Gnowangerup 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

    [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

    Mogumber was full, New Norcia was full, Tardun was full, Sister Kate’s was full. They were full of all our kids. And they only could just squeeze us, me and my brothers, into Marribank Mission.

    Marie Pryor, Survivor, Gnowangerup and Marribank Missions

    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
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The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 4 October 1932

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About the Documentary

Genocide in the Wildflower State is a 57 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 1972, 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 Generations 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.