Honoria Goldberg

Born 1946 in Glasgow, Honoria Goldberg was sent to St Joseph’s in Australia when she was eight.

She recalls being so starved that "add my back teeth got pulled out. There was nothing wrong with them, and I was just hungry. It was worth the pain to get a little more food."

Norman Johnston

"I was seven-years-old when I arrived in Australia in May 1950. I was deported from Scotland through Southampton. At the Boy’s Home in Castledare in Western Australia, a tremendous amount of abuse — physical, sexual, mental — began to occur with all the children.

Later at 10, I was deported to Clontarf where once again, the abuse continued with this organization known as the Christian Brothers. This time — on a much larger scale."

"Some of the boys that I traveled with told me that I had cried for three solid days. We’ve been at sea for three days before I knew I was not going back. The description they gave us of Australia was that it just down the road and around the corner.

As a seven-year-old, I thought wow, they said all these wonderful things about Australia… that you pick fruit off the trees on the way, that the sun shines… it sounded absolutely fantastic. The analogy they came up with was that you’ll get a better life and that’s an absolute fallacy. We didn’t even know where Australia was — let alone that it was a different continent.

The day I arrived at Castledare, we were kicked and belted off the bus. From the minute we arrived, a member of the Christian Brother got on the bus and bellowed at us to get off and get into a single line outside the bus. I remember thinking: ‘My God, what have we gotten ourselves into here?’ And it never got better from that day."

"Children were constantly interfered with by members of the Christian Brothers. The brutality, starvation, and depravation that occurred to these children were absolutely atrocious. The unfortunate thing was because no one monitored what was going on, the carers had carte blanche to do whatever it was they wanted to do with us — and that was exactly what they did.

Children were raped, children were sexually abused, children were flogged, children were starved. There was never a day I can recall where I was not hungry. The clothing we were given were well below what should’ve been. Goodness knows how most of us survived these ordeals.

The Christian Brother would walk into our dormitory, pick one of the children up any night he felt like it, carry him to his room in the dead of the night and sexually abuse him in the room and then carry him back into his bed before morning. This was standard practice. It was so open.

We’ll be sitting in class and one of the Christian Brothers would just openly abuse the children. He’ll have his hands down his trousers while he was standing next to him. And we were just gobsmacked, just watching him. At that age, I knew what I was seeing was not right.

What happened to me was no less than what happened to most of the British children. It was barbaric, it was inexcusable, it was not warranted.

The brutality that accompanied the sexual abuse by these carers was unbelievable. We were told, ‘Your parents didn’t want you, your country didn’t want you… so that’s why you are here — this is your last chance.’"

• Full story at CNN.

• Filed under Australasia, Children, Crime, Roman Catholic Church, Scottish Christian News Monitor, Video.