One of the fantasies many adopted people have is breaking into the Vital Stats, the Health Department, the Courthouse, the adoption agency– wherever their OBCs and other state and legal records are under lock, key, and seal. I personally know a handful who admit privately they’ve gotten records by “shady” means such as bribery and forgery, but it’s not the kind of thing discussed in public forums. I had a friend many years ago who stole his file right out of the hands of the director of an adoption agency and ran out the door with it. When she threatened him with arrest for theft and assault, he manged incredibility to get her fired the next day. It’s a long, rather complicated, and improbable story, but its his story, not mine to tell. But oh, what a beautiful story it is! I applaud his success.
My friend’s appropriation pales in comparison, however, to the major adoption file haul that occurred in Pamplona, Spain, around 35-40 years ago (probably in the mid-1980s.) Think of it as the Great Train Robbery of adoption records.
I know I didn’t imagine it, but the short article I read, cut out, and carried with me for years until it was lost. Unfortunately, this inspiring caper has been erased from history (sound familiar?) or at least from internet search engines and the New York Times archives. So you are stuck taking my word for it.
The news story reported that a man in Pamplona had been sentenced to prison for breaking into a Catholic orphanage and stealing 200 (or maybe it was 400?) adoption files and then sending them to the now adults to whom they pertained. Unfortunately, the article was only a couple of paragraphs long and did not go beyond that basic information.
Forty years ago, I didn’t know that fascist Spain, like many other countries including El Salvador, Greece, Argentina, and the Soviet Union, had adopted adoption as a tool of political and social repression and punishment.
Up to 300,000 children–some born out of wedlock, others the children of political dissidents–were trafficked for adoption in Spain and internationally during the 1939-1975 Franco regime (and beyond) facilitated by the Catholic Church, hospitals, clinics, and civil servants. Parents were informed that their babies died shortly after birth, and in some cases bodies were presented to them as proof of death. A reduced level of trafficking continued after Franco’s demise. About 15 years ago government investigations began, trials held, and some forced adoptees reunited with their families. It’s as big a scandal as Ireland’s Magdeline Laundries but hasn’t got much play in the US.
The Bastard Nation Spain page contains a large collection of articles on Spanish adoption trafficking and the investigations that followed. It needs to be updated, but from what I saw today going through the NYT archives, the fall-out is still falling. Here are two 2018 articles that cover a lot of territory. The “stolen babies” in Spain finally shines a light on a scandal that cannot be forgotten and Franco’s “Stolen Babies” Speak Out: “An Apology is Not Enough.”
The liberation of the Pamplona adoption records was a tremendous act of bravery, especially since the baby thieves were former and contemporary political, religious, and social powers. Yet, I have seen no reference to it in any of the articles I’ve read over the years.
As I said, I know I didn’t imagine it, and I’d really like to know more. Adoptee history is too easy and too often ignored and erased.
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(No, it will never be X!)
Stop Safe Haven Baby Boxes Now!
Poke the Bear 2024
Day 4 — 26 Days to Go
