Behind the locked door

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2024

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Austrian house where a doctor experimented on children.

Evy Mages grew up in and out of foster care in 1970s and 80s Austria. But even when she started a new life in the US, she was haunted by traumatic memories of a strange yellow house high up in the Alps, where she had been placed as an eight-year-old. It took an idle internet search in her 50s to reveal that this was actually an institution called a 'Kinderbeobachtungsstation', or 'child-observation station', where vulnerable children were experimented on by a psychologist using shocking methods. She decided to step back into her past to uncover the full, disturbing truth of what happened there.

Evy’s story first appeared in a New Yorker article in September 2023.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Edgar Maddicott Editor: Rebecca Vincent

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about what goes into making one.
0:06.5	I'm Sadata Sese, an assistant commissioner of podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:11.1	I pull a lot of levers to support a diverse range of podcasts on all sorts of subjects,
0:16.0	relationships, identity, comedy, even one that mixes poetry, music and inner city life.
0:22.4	So one day I'll be helping host develop their ideas, the next fact-checking, a feature,
0:28.3	and the next looking at how a podcast connects with its audience.
0:32.3	And maybe that's you.
0:33.6	So if you like this podcast, check out some others on BBC Sounds.
0:38.6	Hi, Namulantacombo here with some very exciting news.
0:42.8	Dear Daughter is back for a new series.
0:45.4	I'm putting together a handbook to life for Daughters everywhere,
0:48.7	full of stories and advice to help navigate life.
0:51.6	That's Dear Daughter from the BBC World Service.
0:55.0	Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
1:02.1	I googled what came up is the name of the facility.
1:09.2	I couldn't believe it.
1:18.2	Really? Is that it? That's it. Yes, I think. I think that's the place. I had these memories that I'd never spoken about and then here they were.
1:25.9	Like everything exploded inside of me. I ran out of the house. I wanted
1:31.0	to really scream it from the mountaintops. In one swift internet search, a specter from the past
1:40.1	flashed through Evie Margus's head, an image of a pale yellow house
1:44.6	standing in the shadow of the snow-capped Austrian Alps,
1:48.0	high on the slopes of the In River Valley.
	...

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