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The Documentary Podcast

Bonus: Lives Less Ordinary

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary

4.32.7K Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2024

⏱️ 49 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A bonus episode from the Lives Less Ordinary podcast. 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 the New Yorker in 2023. Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Edgar Maddicott Editor: Rebecca Vincent Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707

For more extraordinary personal stories from around the world, go to bbcworldservice.com/liveslessordinary or search for Live Less Ordinary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello, I'm India-Rackerson and welcome to this bonus episode in the documentary from the BBC World Service.

0:07.9

Now, I host the BBC's Lives Less Ordinary podcast, which seeks out extraordinary life experiences from around the world.

0:16.0

We're going to bring you an episode of Lives Less Ordinary here, whenever we can.

0:20.4

But to catch more of our shows, just search for Lives Less Ordinary wherever you find your BBC podcasts.

0:30.4

I googled what came up is the name of the facility.

0:37.5

I couldn't believe it.

0:39.7

Really?

0:40.9

Is that it?

0:42.8

That's it.

0:44.3

Yes, I think.

0:45.9

I think that's the place.

0:48.2

I had these memories that I'd never spoken about,

0:51.3

and then here they were.

0:54.2

Like everything exploded inside of me.

0:56.9

I ran out of the house.

0:58.9

I wanted to really scream it from the mountaintops.

1:04.9

In one swift internet search, a specter from the past flashed through Evie Margaz's head,

1:12.9

an image of a pale yellow house standing in the shadow of the snow-capped Austrian Alps, high on the slopes of the Inriver Valley.

1:19.1

It's been turned into flats now, but its walls hold a terrible secret, one that was kept from

1:25.7

the world and from the children like Evie here

1:28.4

who lived between them years ago.

1:35.3

You're listening to Lives Less Ordinary. I'm Indiarakison. Today's episode, Behind the Locked Door.

...

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