Postwar abuse

last updated 8 January 2015

Berlin

At least a half-million children were neglected and abused in church-run children’s homes after World War II, a historical account published last week claims. Peter Wensierski’s Beaten in God’s Name is based on dozens of interviews with former charges in Protestant and Catholic facilities who are now in their 60s. “Many are so ashamed that they have not even been able to tell their own children or spouses about what happened to them,” Wensierski said. “Being interviewed for the book was simply a release.” In one typical story, a teenager in a home run by the Catholic Sisters of Mercy was forced to work silently in the laundry for 10 hours a day. The nuns beat her with broomsticks if she spoke.