DBS Mother's Choice Podcast Episode 2 Summary

0:00 JASON: Welcome back everybody to Mother's Choice, specifically DBS Mother's Choice's channel.

0:04 JASON: We are back with episode two of our podcast series, that's right.

0:08 JASON: We got another special guest today, everybody's favorite history teacher, Ms. Julice Yeung.

0:12 MS. YEUNG: Thank you, I'm the only history, IB history teacher at DBS too.

0:16 JASON: But still the favorite.

0:17 MS. YEUNG: Thank you.

0:18 ERNEST: I'm Ernest, I'm a new person in this podcast.

0:22 ERNEST: Today we're going to talk about adoption during World War II.

0:27 ERNEST: Hopefully Ms. Yeung can give us a lot of insight into it.

0:31 MS. YEUNG: Great, so thanks for having me here.

0:34 MS. YEUNG: I feel that it's good to talk about adoption since World War II because there's always been a need for adoption.

0:41 MS. YEUNG: So why don't we look at a few decades before.

0:44 MS. YEUNG: Maybe you can start with adoption through Operation Pied Piper in the UK.

0:51 MS. YEUNG: So that's a government operation to allow parents to voluntarily get their children to be transferred to the countryside during World War II.

1:01 MS. YEUNG: They will be taken care of by a foster family temporarily during the war.

1:06 MS. YEUNG: The idea is that during World War II, there was a belief that the Axis power is going to bomb the major cities in the UK.

1:14 MS. YEUNG: So many parents want to send their kids to the countryside to avoid the bombing.

1:20 MS. YEUNG: So that was the project.

1:22 MS. YEUNG: And so on one hand, there was a way to save those children from the bombing.

1:27 MS. YEUNG: But the children do suffer as well because in that scheme, so the parents have no control over where their kids are going to be sent, and there's no way for them to monitor how they're being treated.

1:40 MS. YEUNG: The foster families take care of the children for a payment from the government.

1:45 MS. YEUNG: But whether or not they really take care of their kids with all their heart is really up to them.

1:51 MS. YEUNG: So for many children that's been sent to the countryside with foster families, they felt like a sense of loneliness.

1:59 MS. YEUNG: They're displaced from their families.

2:02 MS. YEUNG: And so before this podcast, I looked at some documentaries.

2:05 MS. YEUNG: Many of those children are just below 10 years old.

2:08 MS. YEUNG: I looked at two case studies.

2:10 MS. YEUNG: One's a seven-year-old kid.

2:12 MS. YEUNG: One's a nine-year-old.

2:13 MS. YEUNG: So they were quite confused.

2:14 MS. YEUNG: They didn't understand the war.

2:16 MS. YEUNG: But they were separated from their family.

2:19 MS. YEUNG: And the foster family may or may not have the training to provide them with the right kind of guidance or counseling to get through this change.

2:29 MS. YEUNG: So yeah, that was a struggle for some of them.

2:34 JASON: Yeah, that sounds really rough, especially considering the ages of all of them.

2:38 JASON: Given the gravity of the circumstances at the time, do you have any thoughts on how that would, what that was dealt with or how they could have dealt with that back then?

2:46 MS. YEUNG: I see.

2:47 MS. YEUNG: I think if possible, it would be great that the parents have some sort of way to get an update from their kids.

2:56 MS. YEUNG: So there's some sort of monitoring of how their kids are being treated.

2:59 MS. YEUNG: So that might be better.

3:01 MS. YEUNG: And of course, if that is possible, some training for the foster families would be great to help the kids get through the rough times.

3:08 MS. YEUNG: So I guess that's where organizations like Mother's Choice come in.

3:12 MS. YEUNG: Like when there's a potential foster family, they provide information and training for the foster family to take care of the new kids before the fostering actually happens or the adoption.

3:28 MS. YEUNG: So yeah, I think some training for the receiving family would be helpful.

3:33 ERNEST: So as we can see, Ms. Yeung has told us a lot about evacuating children from cities, urban centers to the countryside.

3:43 ERNEST: Now, could you please give us some statistics about children who were, unfortunately, suffered traumatic experiences in World War II, notably in some Central European countries?

3:57 MS. YEUNG: I see.

3:57 MS. YEUNG: So in Central Europe, that's a situation which has children born as a result of rape during the war.

4:07 MS. YEUNG: So rape happened on both sides of the war, both the Axis and the Allies during the war.

4:13 MS. YEUNG: There are many examples.

4:15 MS. YEUNG: So for example, there's the Allied rape wave of 1944 when there's records that the Moroccan Goumiers, which is a part of the French forces, has raped Italian civilians during their Italian campaign.

4:30 MS. YEUNG: And then there were also records of at least 3,500 American soldiers having raped women in liberated France.

4:40 MS. YEUNG: So the Allies did commit some rapes.

4:43 MS. YEUNG: And at the Eastern Front, when Germany invaded Poland and the Soviet Union, they also used rape as a method of war.

4:53 MS. YEUNG: And later, when the Soviet Union got an upper hand in war, so they fought their way back from Poland all the way to Germany, and rape also happened as a form of punishment for those who used to collaborate with Nazi Germany.

5:06 MS. YEUNG: So numbers are hard to find because many victims didn't want to reveal what happened to them.

5:15 MS. YEUNG: But definitely, there must be some children born out of rape.

5:21 MS. YEUNG: And they will struggle from that because they have confusion over their identity.

5:27 MS. YEUNG: Many of them didn't know their father, and they have an incomplete family, lack of support both mentally and financially.

5:35 MS. YEUNG: And also, their mothers might suffer mental stress, and not to mention the capacity they need to take care of the children.

5:46 JASON: Yeah, absolutely.

5:47 JASON: These are both issues that Mother's Choice does handle with.

5:50 JASON: For example, pregnancy, teen pregnancy, ordered pregnancy in general, and orphan children that may be born out of tragedies such as rape, which is very unfortunate to hear of.

6:02 JASON: But also, even though this did happen in World War II, the examples of, for example, rape, and orphan children born from rape still persist to this day.

6:13 JASON: And it's still a modern issue.

6:16 JASON: What do you think we can do about that?

6:19 JASON: What do you think we can apply from that based on history?

6:22 MS. YEUNG: I see, so I think there are a few things.

6:26 MS. YEUNG: So if we have a family ready to adopt children, that would be very helpful.

6:32 MS. YEUNG: Because in the case of war children, or the evacuee children, sometimes the parents really just didn't have a better solution for them.

6:42 MS. YEUNG: So it would be great if we can take care of the kids.

6:47 MS. YEUNG: Even if we're, maybe you're too young to think of adopting children of your own, but one thing we can all do is to do away the stigma on the mothers, because in these cases, the mother might not be evil, like trying to abandon their kids.

7:08 MS. YEUNG: They would just seek adoption as a solution because that's already the best option they could have.

7:14 MS. YEUNG: Back in World War II, because of the bombing, many parents have to send their kids away.

7:18 MS. YEUNG: Not because they hate their kids, but they thought that was best for them.

7:23 MS. YEUNG: And the same goes for cases of rape, even in modern days.

7:27 MS. YEUNG: Sometimes it happens to women that has no plan to raise a kid, or no financial means to do that.

7:34 MS. YEUNG: So I think we should try to fight the stigma, and so that women won't feel pressurized to make the decision to go for an adoption.

7:50 JASON: I absolutely agree with you.

7:51 JASON: Well said, especially on the stigma part.

7:53 JASON: Would you like to carry us forward, Ernest, into the next part?

7:56 ERNEST: So as some of you may know, there are some Jewish people who were killed in the Holocaust.

8:03 ERNEST: So Ms. Yeung, could you please tell us about some of these, also tell us about some of these statistics on what happened during the Holocaust as people were killed, and what might the children experience?

8:16 MS. YEUNG: I see.

8:17 MS. YEUNG: So in the Holocaust, a lot of parents were killed, either in concentration camps or in labor camps.

8:25 MS. YEUNG: So that left a lot of children as orphans.

8:29 MS. YEUNG: The numbers are hard to find, but based on the sources I've read, so that must be tens of thousands of them.

8:37 MS. YEUNG: And for example, I've been to a talk by a Holocaust survivor a few months ago, I think with some of our great-aunts as well.

8:45 MS. YEUNG: And he had his entire family wiped out, except for himself, as a, I think, seven-year-old kid.

8:52 MS. YEUNG: So what he went through is like the trauma, because he lost most of his family.

8:57 MS. YEUNG: But he has no one he's close to, to like talk through it, and he didn't get the right kind of counseling that he has.

9:04 MS. YEUNG: So there's a lot of struggle.

9:06 MS. YEUNG: And in the case of World War II, I've looked at some documentaries.

9:11 MS. YEUNG: Some of the children not only were orphaned, but they witnessed their parents being taken away by Gestapo or the SS, or being sent to concentration camp.

9:22 MS. YEUNG: So there's a lot they need to go through mentally to have a functioning childhood.

9:31 JASON: Yeah, absolutely.

9:32 JASON: Wow, that's a lot to say.

9:34 JASON: It must be tough for anyone to deal with that, let alone think about all the Jewish children that were orphaned.

10:05 ERNEST: Um, how would you say that the survivor's guilt might affect the children?

10:05 ERNEST: Because they were, they used to have a family, but after the Holocaust and after the concentration camps, they might have both have like some trauma due to physical attacks on them, or they might have survivor's guilt, as the person who said who lost his entire family at seven.

10:09 ERNEST: So how might you think they would be able to cope?

10:11 MS. YEUNG: Many of them were sent to orphanages, and there were some social workers to teach them how to cope with that.

10:19 MS. YEUNG: But of course, that was not enough compared to having your own parents with you all the time.

10:25 MS. YEUNG: Today in orphanages, I think there's a more developed strategy to help those children.

10:32 MS. YEUNG: For example, for very young kids, I know that I visited Mother's Choice once, and there are volunteers like holding babies for hours each day so that the babies can feel the warmth of a hug before they even know they even knew they need that.

10:49 MS. YEUNG: So yeah, I think that kind of care could help them a little bit.

10:56 JASON: Absolutely.

10:56 JASON: Very well said.

10:57 JASON: And that is in fact correct.

10:59 JASON: Mother's Choice does do that.

11:00 JASON: They help out with babies all the time.

11:03 JASON: In fact, you can help out too if you volunteer.

11:06 JASON: And it does not have to be for hours a day just to nurture or coddle a kid.

11:10 JASON: You can simply give a little service, play with them, teach them a little.

11:14 JASON: Anything that you can do to help, Mother's Choice will accept, and you will do the world so much good.

11:21 JASON: Now, to close off, Ms. Yeung, would you have any thoughts regarding adoption on a personal level?

11:29 MS. YEUNG: Oh, I see.

11:30 MS. YEUNG: So I have actually been considering adoption myself.

11:35 MS. YEUNG: The reason is that when me and my husband get married, we actually discuss adoption as a possibility for us.

11:41 MS. YEUNG: The reason is because of my husband's story.

11:44 MS. YEUNG: So he was abandoned by his father when he was a kid, when he was in primary school.

11:49 MS. YEUNG: And after that, his aunt, which is his father's sister, showed up and decided to take care of him, both financially and mentally.

12:00 MS. YEUNG: So as a result, so that really filled the gap because his mother was so depressed, and his sister is also disabled.

12:08 MS. YEUNG: So he really lacked an adult to take care of him.

12:11 MS. YEUNG: So his aunt really comes in and fills the gap and helps him grow up okay.

12:17 MS. YEUNG: So he's fine.

12:19 MS. YEUNG: He went to university, became a professional, got someone willing to marry him.

12:23 MS. YEUNG: So I guess he's doing fine.

12:25 MS. YEUNG: And that was because...

12:27 MS. YEUNG: And he's always very thankful to his aunt.

12:30 MS. YEUNG: He felt that the fact that she came in and have all these talks with him, make sure he is eating enough, he is feeling okay, gave him a second chance to thrive as a human being.

12:44 MS. YEUNG: And it was much later that we found out his aunt did all this to him because his aunt herself was adopted.

12:52 MS. YEUNG: So she felt that because she was adopted, she had a second chance in this life.

12:57 MS. YEUNG: And she wants to give back to the next person.

13:02 MS. YEUNG: And that's why she did that.

13:04 MS. YEUNG: So now that his aunt has passed away, we felt that we may want to share this love with the next person.

13:13 MS. YEUNG: So we're thinking that if we want to have kids at all, we will consider adoption.

13:17 JASON: That's an incredibly uplifting and touching story.

13:20 ERNEST: So thank you, Ms. Yeung, for your personal experience.

13:24 ERNEST: Do you have any friends that may have considered adoption or have actually adopted?

13:31 MS. YEUNG: Yes, the former pastor at my church actually has adopted a daughter.

13:37 MS. YEUNG: So he and his wife had one daughter first.

13:40 MS. YEUNG: And then at the age of seven of their daughter, they decided to adopt a younger sister for her.

13:48 MS. YEUNG: And from that, I learned that the family who is adopting a child is also benefiting from it because the daughter has a companion.

14:00 MS. YEUNG: And I also learned about some realities of adoption from their experience.

14:06 MS. YEUNG: In the beginning, it wasn't that easy because the adopted daughter had some previous trauma to deal with because she was in a situation.

14:17 MS. YEUNG: That's why she needs an adoption.

14:19 MS. YEUNG: So she needs to go through some counseling sessions to blend into the family.

14:26 MS. YEUNG: So yeah, but then it was essentially why she needs a family.

14:33 MS. YEUNG: So I think in the end, I think they went quite well.

14:38 MS. YEUNG: Like sometimes I see pictures of them like going on holidays as a family of four.

14:44 MS. YEUNG: So it makes me think that it could be done.

14:48 MS. YEUNG: And so when someone adopts a children, they're also setting an example to others that it's actually a viable solution.

14:57 JASON: I couldn't agree with you more.

14:59 JASON: Absolutely well said.

15:01 JASON: Just to add more to this, as you mentioned your pastor who adopted did go through some issues maybe before it went maybe smoother.

15:14 JASON: Would you have any advice or even just opinions on people who might want to adopt in the future?

15:19 MS. YEUNG: I see.

15:20 MS. YEUNG: I think it would be good to prepare ourselves before we do that.

15:25 MS. YEUNG: Like the adopting family might want to do some research on that particular child, like how you can be a better listener, be a better supporter, so that you can help the children not only in terms of like the finance or getting them fed, but also like giving them the right kind of counseling to like help them grow.

15:50 ERNEST: Thank you Ms. Yeung for helping us to do this podcast today.

15:55 JASON: Remember to like, subscribe to our account and more importantly, support Mother's Choice because we are speaking on behalf of Mother's Choice.

16:05 JASON: So you can donate, you can volunteer, do whatever, even spreading the word.

16:10 JASON: Anything, awareness will help.

16:12 JASON: So you can do your part if you want for these children, women, families in need.

16:16 JASON: We will appreciate your help and we will see you...

16:18 JASON: Next time.