The Untold Holocaust

Institutional care has its long, dark history in all modern societies. Bearing this in mind, the forces, which pushed Bulgaria to the direction of reforming the system of the “homes”, are the result of serious social and psychological experience. We shouldn’t fool ourselves – neither in Europe, nor elsewhere in the developed, democratic countries, has the idea of breaking away from the institutional model come out of positive experience. Even to this day, disclosures of unimaginable treatment of children and adults with disabilities continue to leak from the public (and private) institutions in those countries. The new idea about the closure of these institutions is slowly making its way to the societal customs and norms, cultivated for centuries. Customs and norms, to which we all, without exceptions, are carriers and hosts.

The removal of the Bulgarian children with disabilities from a multitude of gray buildings, located in obscure villages, is without a doubt an important step towards repaying the woeful, collective bill, also known as conscience. Deinstitutionalization – an outlandish, ready-made word that has entered our common vocabulary only recently, together with a complex, multi-faceted, externally imposed push to change something in our attitude towards (or rather our methods of state-led handling of) children with disabilities abandoned by their parents: those for which no charity event has ever been organized and no text message has been sent, because we have entrusted the government with their care.

At any rate, thanks to the multitude of local NGO’s, ushered into action by equal quantities of compassion, inspiration from foreign experience and considerable multinational funding, the removal of kids like Kathy from the gray buildings is already on its way. The external forces of change have been internalized and the crusade for “deinstitutionalization” has gathered its own small, but effective army of local warriors — not only from among the NGOs’ crowd but from among the state administration as well. Approximately 2000 children between the ages of 2 and 18 will be permanently removed from those reeking of stale food and urine (those who have entered are aware of it) masterpieces of the communist-time social system (about 30 in the country) in order to be placed in 150 new, small, welcoming houses spread across 81 municipalities. Hundreds of people work for this national project, which is planned to be completed by the fall of 2015 – the rearranging of the system is accompanied by weeping and gnashing of teeth, but the process seems irreversible – starting from next year, the children with the wheelchairs and the wandering glances will be living in better, more humane conditions, in smaller groups and under the care of better specialists. The destiny of those emptied buildings is unclear, but I fathom, that at least one of them should be kept as it is, as a museum of a long and terrifying children Holocaust, which is yet to be studied and understood.

A fresh, unprejudiced view on the whole existing system of institutional care is needed and the topic of the aprons of the women working there is merely a single brush stroke from the painting we need to repaint. “Repaint” because the process should be more creative, spontaneous and even playful, rather that technocratic.

The people, who are currently trying to repaint the institutional landscape, are well-prepared and motivated. The Institution has been given a shot of injection and most of the participants in the process are already aware that this injection is not poison, but medicine, which will help transform the caterpillar into a butterfly.