Heimerziehung in Deutschland und England. Ein Vergleich (German Edition)

There have always been, and in all likelihood will always be, children and youth who are not able or not allowed to grow up in either any kind of family of origin or in a non-enforced adoptive family. Common goals of child agencies are to provide safety, permanency and well being for all children, including those who are in care. While physical and sexual abuse as well as neglect have, in the West, increasingly become unacceptable and punishable by law, the abuse caused due to lack of permanency, in particular relational permanency but also physical and legal permanency, has not yet reached the same social and legal recognition.

His research has since been confirmed beyond doubt and it is today recognized that children grow up best in nurturing and stable families. Despite the vast scientific evidence in medicine and in neuroscience of how vital relational permanency is for humans, most children in care are, to this day, exposed to repeated relational, physical and legal 3 John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss New York: Moreover, during that time period the first large-scale sum for expansive research into what is today also known as 4 The Federation of BC Youth in Care Networks has created an online document, which gives a concise overview and explanation on permanency.

The Swiss parliament approves eleven million Swiss Francs for independent research into the removal of Yenish children and retribution payments, and grants a select group of researchers access to files and records documenting the process of assimilating the Yenish. I introduce the group in more depth in later chapters and chapter sections. Canada begins the implementation of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement IRSSA , which includes retribution payments, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, commemoration and extensive research into several aspects of the residential school system.

In August , the Australian government released the following report: A Report on Australians who experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children Parliament of Australia, August 30, , accessed November 26, , http: The apology was made in February The apology was made in June Mai gefeierten National Sorry Day. Februar , accessed November 25, , http: Canada saw no need to issue an official apology to their British child migrants. Accessed May 21, There are similar reports from overseas. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom issues an official apology for the shameful British child settlement program.

Blumering documents the development of a vaccine for smallpox, which was first tested on children from Austrian and Russian foundling homes. The apology was made in February of It is estimated that , of the , were placed in the former GDR. In October, Switzerland allocates victim compensation for those who were placed in psychiatric clinics and prisons without due process.

Accessed September 14, They too had to give up their children, and they had to work for free in the laundries. The last Magdalene Asylum closed, in Ireland, in The UN is right, Ireland must investigate. Austria has not yet given any official apologizes. Medical research was undertaken on children, youth and adults without their consent in psychiatric clinics, until the nineteen seventies.

Posted November 7, , www. A clear distinction is today made in German-language Europe between child and youth wards who had to work for their keep and those who did not. As the name suggests, residents of closed homes do not leave the premises to attend public school or kindergarten.

Heimerziehung in Deutschland und England. Ein Vergleich

While the meaning of some of the English and the German terms overlap, many do not. The translation challenges between English and German terminology describing children and youth in state or community care become even more complex when analyzing German-language fiction that was written before the twentieth century. Therefore, in order to accurately convey in English what the German novel explores, through its many historical, international, socio-cultural and literary allusions, I would like to propose a new terminology. There appears to exist no corollary in the English language that expresses these experiences and contradictions in one word.

With the development of the nuclear family in the eighteenth and nineteenth century in central Europe, however, the notion of blood relation and the community of one or both parent s and at least one child came into use in both English and German. The experience of being un-familied can also be due to government actions, illness or death of caregivers, abandonment and so on.

This is a further reason why poverty theories cannot adequately explain the reality of growing up in extrafamilial care. They too are prescriptive. These terms describe the challenges and losses children and youth encounter while growing up outside of their family of origin or outside of a non-enforced adoptive families. However, these expressions negate positive care experiences.

While it would be easier to use either the German or the English acronym throughout the dissertation, the two acronyms do not fully signify the same. South End Press, , This is by no means a complete list, and does not include fairy tales, children and youth books, as well as autobiographies.

All four are from the nineteenth century. Within the reviewed texts, some of the issues addressed are specific to a certain socio-historical environment, e. Other themes are reccurring, such as lack of cognitive and language abilities, identity, belonging, sibling incest, poverty, racialization of class, being orphaned, or being abandoned. In this regard, these texts investigate socio-political aspects and ponder ideas and ideologies. The novel prompts readers to investigate expressions, historical references and allusions to other texts, and in doing so to uncover a complex and far-reaching 81 Many of them are, or were meant to be, part of a counter discourse.

Translations All English translations of Daskind, and other German-language texts are my own, unless otherwise noted. I argue, as translations are part of the intercultural exchange of values, beliefs, social norms and notions of correctness,83 they, particularly those of an older, canonical text such as Lehrjahre, serve as historical sources to map change. Moreover, as more and more German texts are taught in translation at North American colleges and universities, older as well as more recent translations of these texts have to be considered as part of the reception of the original text.

In order to understand the 82 For my dissertation, I am working with the Hamburger edition. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Rodopi, , , Gunter Narr Verlag, Carlyle is the first to translate Lehrjahre into English, and was in the early nineteenth century the main translator of this text and of other works of Goethe. I include Neilson into my examination as his translation shows how ideologies are reiterated and passed on through various scholarly works.

The third translation I employ is Eric A. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, , Chapman and Hall, William Allan Neilson New York: Blackall does not edit the sections pertaining to Mignon to fit moral ideologies the way Carlyle does. This has, as I will show, far reaching consequences for the understanding and perception of Mignon and the group of real-life people she represents.

In addition, whenever the four selected translations do not do justice to the Mignon character of the original, I include my own translation. Alma Classics, , Graham Allen97 [I]t is quite possible that the major mechanisms of power have been accompanied by ideological productions.

Michel Foucault98 What types of knowledge do you want to discqualify in the very instant of your demand: Which theoretical-political avant garde do you want to enthrone in order to isolate it from all the discontinuous forms of knowledge that circulate about it?

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These people, who are to this day not recognized as a 97 Graham Allen, Intertextuality, London: This calls for a theoretical framework that combines notions of power structures, and their subversion on a societal as well as an individual level, with notions of intertextuality. Routledge, , 1. It is based on a reactivation of local knowledges — of minor knowledges, as Deleuze might call them — in opposition to the scientific hierarchisation of knowledges and the effects intrinsic to their power.

Intertextuality The term intertextuality was coined by Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva in her writings introducing the work of Russian philosopher, literary critic and semiotician Mikhail Bakthin to French literary theorists in the nineteen sixties. However, the origin of intertextuality, Graham Allen underscores in his extensive research on intertextuality, can be traced back to the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure.

All utterances are responses and are addressed to specific addressees. This manifesto enhances the role of Allen, Intertextuality, Medvedev, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, trans. Harvard University Press , 66, quoted in Allen, Intertextuality, Fontana , , quoted in Allen, Intertextuality, Feminist critics have responded in different ways to the loss of authority.

Seabury Press, , 49, quoted in Allen, Intertextuality, The woman writer and the nineteenth-century literary imagination New Haven CT: Yale University Press, , 49, quoted in Allen, Intertextuality, An Undergraduate Journal of Literary Criticism, Miller responds to the different voices by suggesting a postmodern authorial signature.

She echoes and plays with texts, as well as with well-established genres and employs literary techniques and devices, such as historical, international, socio-cultural and literary allusions to convey her political message. Zytglogge, , Studies of the novel typically focus entirely on the protagonist. There are, however, good reasons, as I will show, to include the figure of Armin Lacher in the thematic analysis and to start the interpretation with this character rather than with the protagonist.

In a next step I engage in a discussion of violence. In particular, I explore the interconnections between indirect, i. The narrative illustrates how violence 38 begets violence and highlights a new form of violence. Today, historians and social scientists believe the Yenish to be descendants of the heterogeneous group of the marginalized vagrant poor, mainly of central Europe. One year later, Mehr began her journalistic work for several Swiss newspapers and magazines, in particular for the Wochenzeitung WOZ , the Berner Zeitung, and the Tagesanzeiger Magazin. In a documentary about her work and life, the author introduces herself as follows: Die Kraft aus Wut und Schmerz — Zum In earlier years, researchers claimed the Yenish to be an autonomous ethnic group, a sub-tribe of the Roma.

So did, for example Huonker, Fahrendes Volk — verfolgt und verfemt. Her first publications, a book of poetry, was followed by a poetry prose letter-documentation, a drama, a collection of texts, and a second novel. Since its beginnings in , the brand has expanded to include a travel agency, continuing education, language schools, gasoline stations, a bank, an insurance company, a weekly magazine and from the newspaper Die TAT. The declared goal was the extinction of itinerancy.

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Alfred Siegfried, the founder of the project, is known to have stated: As hard as this may sound, he has to tear the family apart. There is no other way. I diverge from this translation for the following reasons: Furthermore, this expression is influenced by ideologies ranging from romantic notions to social-Darwinist and racial classifications.

Ein Versuch zur Sesshaftmachung von Kindern des fahrenden Volkes. They suffered humiliation, maltreatment, stigmatization and racism. Some were forced to undergo electroshock treatment and sterilization. The author Mariella Mehr was herself a ward of the Pro Juventute project. In the dedication in steinzeit she states: De Gruyter, , s,v. Daskind is the first book of a trilogy, which extensively explores the conditions of these minorities and the society to which they belong. Ellenberger, e-mail message to author, February 28, In addition, the publishing house Ullstein is unable to give out that information due to data protection laws.

Christiane Stahl, e-mail message to author, March 4, Reception in the Context of the Trilogy Initially, Daskind was understood and read by critics as a text dealing with child abuse and the bigotry and mendacity that engenders such circumstances. Mehr confirmed this interpretation in an interview in where she stated: This reading of Daskind changed in when Angeklagt was published, and to a lesser degree already in with the publication of Brandzauber.

However, despite the new interpretations in magazines and newspapers, the majority of academic investigations which include the novel Daskind, focused, like most of the pre-trilogy critics, on victimization. This interpretation has found its way into other reviews. So opines, for example, Hartmut T.

University of Peruga, Ellenberger, e-mail message to author, January 15, The earliest known scholarly work about Mehr is done by Christine Mergozzi. However, her dissertation does not include Daskind. University of California, Nicholas Saul and Susan Tebbutt Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, , Awards, Recognition, Reprints and Translations Mehr received several literary prizes and awards for Daskind, most notably, the prestigious prize of the Schiller-Stiftung in Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Lamioche is currently out of print.

Seven years later, in , Labambina, the Italian translation, was published by the Italian publishing house Effigie. The Italian copy is still available. Moreover, she has written three theater pieces, two pieces for music and collaborated on a movie-script. Monique Laederach Essertine-sur-Role au Closel: To this Day In , H. It offered until up-to-date information in German, French, Italian and English, and is an excellent tool for reaching a broader audience. The author has a strong presence on the World Wide Web.

In addition to countless hits linking websites to her name, there are also several uploaded videos on YouTube documenting her work and life. In , just a few years after the website was launched, Mehr was the 37th Max Kade writer-in-residence at Oberlin College in Ohio. In , after many years of supporting her work as a web master, H. Mariella Mehr plans to manage the website herself but is currently dealing with serious health issues. In January , the drama group Cantadoras debuted a theatrical version of the novel at the Theater Rampe in Stuttgart.

Daskind is full of abusive characters. The villagers are, in fact, interconnected through an intricate and mostly covert network of abuse. Nonetheless, analyses investigating Daskind through the lens of violence focus exclusively on the young protagonist. Since I read Daskind as a text recovering the subjugated knowledges, i. In the case of Armin, the village exploits him as a work force and keeps him marginalized, even as an adult.

Her background story is revealed through flashbacks. The narrator describes, with shocking imagery, the consequences of how pressure, self-centeredness, the desire for status and revenge, as well as frustration, violence and abuse engendered by unhappy lives, based on blind obedience to Church and authority, are acted out downwards, towards those with less power. The main part of the story takes place in a nameless, generic and outwardly idyllic village in which men raise and breed roses, women have their own clubs and children and youth are exposed to imported cultural events, such as a foot artist and a taxidermied whale.

The compound Daskind, which is made up of an article and a noun, is not a name as some scholars suggest. On the contrary, the Critics have so far only recognized the protagonist as an inverted Kaspar Hauser story. Mariella Mehr, Kind ohne Namen: Harvard University Press, Michel Foucault argues similar. The Birth of the Prison, 2nd ed. Vintage Books, ,ff. The information about the sexual abuse is woven with great caution into the text throughout the entire novel by revealing bits and pieces that only hint at sexual assault but assembled together like a jigsaw puzzle, attest to the repeated violation.

The first piece is given on page one and by the end of the chapter the sexual abuse is for the first time confirmed. Mehr seeks to minimize the abuse that could occur through the act of writing and reading by employing the literary technique of fragmentation. This disclosure, in combination with the continuously mounting evidence that Armin Lacher sexually abuses the young protagonist almost nightly, poses a conundrum for readers early in the text. In jenen Zeiten nahm man es noch nicht so genau mit der Schule, schon gar nicht beim Sohn eines Landfahrers, von dem niemand wusste, woher er kam und wem er den Balg zu verdanken hatte, den er auf seinen Wanderungen mit sich schleppte.

In those days school was not yet taken too seriously, especially not when it came to the son of a Traveler of whom nobody knew where he came from and to whom he owned that bantling, which he schlepped with him on his wanderings. Zigeunerforschung und Zigeunerpolitik im Europa des Geschichte und Struktur einer rassistischen Konstruktion, ed. For further information on the legal situation in Switzerland: University of Bern, All Travelers were to be assimilated.

Travelers were to leave Switzerland. Consequently, all homeless Travelers were arrested. Some, namely local and indigenous Travelers, who are today recognized as the Yenish people, received Swiss citizenship and were allocated to a canton that in turn assigned them to different communities. Although less and less applied, the law was in some cases still utilized in the twentieth century. At times, I also employ the German terms. This contract can contain stipulations such as repayment of the costs of housing, transportation, training and other expenses.

There is evidence that there are even today cases were foster children are taken in to exploit their work force. The most recently publicly acknowledged cases are two brothers who were placed with farmers as cheap labourers until For the short version of the act see: Anti-Slavery Society, last modified , accessed July 16, , www. Equally, appropriate care and employment were found for adults and the elderly of the upper classes. Many rural communities did not have the means to care for their destitute citizens.

Those talk about foster children, who were given to private people, who were in turn compensated for taking the children in. More often, farmers received a small amount of money from the community in exchange for their service. This group included families, who under ideal circumstances, i. The orphanage of Zurich, for example, opened its doors in I will explore this issue in more depth in later chapters. By the nineteenth century it was common to place destitute children with farmers to save money, even though orphanages and other institutional placements became more and more available.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, for example, many families could not survive without the additional income their children provided. In the nineteenth century, as well as during the crisis of the nineteen thirties, overpopulation and little natural resources left many families in devastating poverty.

In addition to proper food and lodging, farmers were supposed to provide their charges with adequate clothing. Many rural communities did not have the means or the desire to care for their destitute citizens, neither in the sixteenth, the nineteenth or the twentieth century. How many children were contracted out in Switzerland alone, or in German-language Europe as a whole is unknown.

These children need to be included in the number and history of contracted-out children. But to this day nobody knows for sure how many children were sent away from their families. There existed significant cantonal differences. Leuenberger cites in his dissertation Johann Baptist Hirscher who wrote two centuries ago: Therefore they become servants in the city or the countryside, and enter herewith a subordinate, by the way necessary, and very respectable class. As such, they were considered deserving of community support, but not of any support that would allow them to step out of their allocated social place.

I will elaborate later on how strongly this affected their life chances. To be accustomed to work at the earliest possible age was believed to be one of the most effective ways to prevent children in need of community assistance growing up to be a burden on society. Critical voices questioned early on how this could happen without proper schooling. There exists no better method of education than work in agriculture. In other words, contracted-out children were seen by farmers and officials alike as a means to fill the positions of serfs.

This was particularly the case during labour shortages of servants and domestics during the agrarian crisis of the eighteen seventies, as well as more than half a century later during World War II. Consequently, boys like little Armin continued to be placed with farmers to fill the position of farmhands, and girls continued to be placed to work as domestics. Many farmers recovered their costs for board, lodging and clothing later from the young adult by keeping her or him on without pay beyond the time the government had contracted them out.

This practice was in some places upheld into the nineteen seventies. Today, every, canton and country, handles this matter separately. This practice was increasingly criticised in the twentieth century. Rosalia Wenger, Warum hast du dich nicht gewehrt - Aufzeichnungen Bern: Mehr expresses already in her broader thematic interest explicitly: The figure Armin Lacher, furthermore, problematizes the complexity of violence.

In the following chapter sections, I address different aspects of violence as explored in Daskind. Some elements of this second arc of suspense conclude in the reveal of Armin Mehr, Daskind, 5. To reiterate, little Armin was not just motherless but also lost his father, which resulted in him becoming de facto a foundling. As if that were not enough loss and hardship to make him jealous of his familied peers, he was subsequently placed with a farmer where he had to work for his keep.

A pile of shit, this life, a torment, had he been familiar with the word. But Lacher knew nothing of words, nothing of those of the heart, and nothing of those words one learned in school. How much his lowly and transient status in the village and society permeates his entire life is also illustrated in his living arrangements. The room he rents from the Kenels is not recognized by Frieda as his room. At first glance, what happened seems to be clear. Apparently, Armin was not willing to wait until they were married to be intimate with Frieda. Frieda, on the other hand, was not willing, so it seems, to give herself to him before their union was official through marriage.

Their conflicting needs clashed when Armin made a forceful advance under the beech tree. This appears to have ended any chance of marriage between him and Frieda. Aber der brannte noch lange, da nutzte kein Gebet und keine Andacht. Lacher mochte bitten und betteln, der Frieda war nicht beizukommen. Frieda Had first looked after her siblings and then supported the parents, with sewing work. Had never kissed a fellow, not that one. Sits opposite to her life, an onlooker in the last row, who has not been invited to join the game. You did not want to await the sacrament, you tried it on the mountain, at the location, where instead of a tower a beech tree stood […].

That it may not overcome her, the sin. Not go to her womb, the willing. But it was on fire for a long time, there helped no prayer and no devotions, turned harder and harder over being on fire, until at last, after years, all desire ceased to exist. Lacher Well, it had to come so far, [ An Ascension that turned imperceptibly into a descent into Hell. And Lacher experienced, what every lover experiences when love falls on the wrong object.

Lacher could plead and beg, there was no way of changing her mind. She waited for Mr. Right, and that could only be one, who let their union for life be sealed through the sacrament of marriage. Her desire and feelings for Lacher were, however, never fully extinguished. Years later, and long since married to Kari, Frieda still remembers him longingly: Interestingly though, this is not the case. In other words, young Armin Lacher was fully aware that he had crossed a line. However, at this point, readers already know that Armin was in love with Frieda and wanted nothing more than to go out and dance with a girl that was promised to him and not to somebody else.

In other words, Lacher would have loved to marry Frieda. Since young Frieda and young Armin clearly had feelings for each other, the question arises, why was Frieda waiting for Mr. This comment makes sense when considering the historical fact that there was a time when it was almost impossible for anybody receiving any form of poor aid to acquire the necessary documents to get married.

Frieda and Armin found themselves in a similar situation. Unlike Frieda, however, Anneli, does not refuse her young and indebted suitor and the couple consummates their love long before Jeremias is able to marry. Tragically, Anneli and their newborn die in childbirth. In other words, Frieda was a migrant worker, more aptly, she was a migrant seamstress. Furthermore, like a married couple, the adult Armin and Frieda live together under one roof.

Somebody without a wife is the laughing stock […]. That is the reason why Frieda continues to cook and wash, the way she has learned to since she was a child. Hence, Frieda did not know, nor did anybody else, that she could not have children until she was married to Kari Kenel. With the woman in the back, […], his child, of whom she knows nothing. The translations of the respective pronouns are: The Heaven, they believed would endure despite the village and the Lord. So he had declared, that the unborn needed to go. The child must go, he had shouted, while tears of abhorrence and disgust ran down his face.

Striking out wildly he did, in helpless anger, and then he hit Leni too, his hands left ugly red marks on her face, he did hit her in the belly, and yelled, she should say something, only one word should she say, give solace to him, she, who herself was inconsolable. He raged on until he sank down exhausted. Like back then, thinks Kari Kenel, there is no solace and no benevolent God within reach, to forgive the sin. One feels again like hitting hard, hitting her, the Leni, from whom no word can be expected, who remains silent.

Kari does not want to see the suffering showing on her face, not the tense hands, above the bulky belly, as if the baby were still unborn. These excerpts establish the protagonist Daskind as the offspring of sibling incest. Unlike in Lehrjahre, however, there is no textual evidence that Kari and Leni did not grow up together or were unaware of their sibling relatedness. In addition, readers are given information, which appear to be contradictory: The Heaven, they believed would last, despite the village and the Lord , not only Ibid.

These statements attest to a very different relationship between the siblings, wherein Kari seems to have been carried away by his desire for Leni and resorted to force to get what he wanted from his younger sister. While Leni loved her brother, textual evidence indicates that she did not share his feelings of sexual desire and instead repeatedly tried to stop his advances and was, in fact, raped by him.

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In addition, the narrative contains also allusions to texts that most comprehensively clarify the affair at hand. This illustrates how challenging some of the relationships between abuser and abused are. Therefore, Tal argues, authors have to be particularly diligent when writing about traumatic events. Cambridge University Press, What distinguishes the curse from other forms of punishment is that a curse can be passed on to descendants.

That is, an innocent member of a family can suffer a curse engendered by the actions of a forefather. Laius is orphaned as a child and taken in by king Pelops of Elis. Subsequently, Laius abducts Chrysippus, the son of Pelops and rapes him, and by doing so breaks the sacred law of hospitality. Thereupon, Pelops curses Laius and his descendants. The oracle of Delphi reveals to Laius the well known punishment for his actions: It is the curse cast on Laius and his descendants that lies at the roots of Oedipus being abandoned.

Like Oedipus, Daskind is innocent pertaining to the curse. Like Oedipus, the female child protagonist is unwanted and to be disposed of. Women had much less access to legal abortions in Catholic cantons, than in protestant ones. The village the narrative takes place in is steeped in old traditions and Catholicism, leaving Leni very few options.

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Daskind tells the story of those who are not descendants of kings, and do not have the good fortune of being taken in and raised as their own, destined to become kings, or queens. When considering that Leni believed in a Switzerland was among the last countries of the Western world to grant its women equal rights to men. The German-speaking canton Appenzell had to be forced by Federal Court in to give their women the right to vote in cantonal matters.

Swiss women were given the right to vote in federal matters in However, women were not considered equal in the Swiss Constitution until This results for Leni in a profound disenchantment with the church and her village community. I thank Gaby Pailer for bringing this to my attention. To protect herself and the child, she ostensibly abandons her parents by moving out and into an old wooden hut in the forest. Abandoned by her brother, and acutely aware that her community would never accept and help support her and the child, Leni does what mothers in need have done for centuries: Unlike Leni, who responds to her expulsion from her Heaven by protecting the weakest, Kari responds to the loss of his illusionary Heaven with violence towards the weaker.

And how can it be said? Northwestern University Press, , When perceived separately, these fragments mirror how the world sees and judges Daskind. Occasionally screams and has outbursts of violent temper in lieu of words. The world, here represented by the people living in the village, sees a child that does not speak but instead acts out, avoids eye contact, skips school, is a loner and deviant. Similarly, readers are asked to commit to and engage with the text in order to understand the narrative. This picture engenders visions of a mentally challenged child, Mehr, Daskind, 5.

I elaborate on this in the following paragraphs and chapter sections. The examples listed in various dictionaries are predominantly institutions for children, youth and adults, who in one form or other deviate from what is considered normal and are therefore separated from the general population and placed in enclosed and formally administered facilities. Vintage Books, , There, as mentioned earlier, Daskind is cared for by staff working shifts.

This statement implies that Daskind lacked loving human care and interactions, and experienced neglect and abuse for a prolonged period of time. The narrative references here what is today recognized in research on institutional care for small children, namely, that neglect and abuse were common in these institutions far into the second half of the twentieth century, and that these living conditions resulted in Hospitalism i.

The syndrome is named after the historical figure Kaspar Hauser. In other words, they suffer from Hospitalism, i. Kaspar Mehr, Daskind, 9. An initial investigation revealed that the youth could barely read, had a limited vocabulary but knew some prayers. Kaspar himself claimed that he has spent his years in total isolation, in a half laying position in a dark room and was fed mainly bred and water. Research on feral children and children growing up without any human interaction reveal his claims as lies.

Ulrich Struve put together a collection of articles investigating texts that are inspired by Kaspar Hauser. Namely, discipline and order which were particularly in Church run institutions colored by Christian doctrines of sin, obedience and punishment: Eine lange Reihe sauber geschrubbter Kinder, [ The text references here the mass-care in institutions for children. It took a few more years before similar care systems were phased out in Germany and Austria. Their bodies were managed and their souls and spirits were to be educated so they would eventually turn into productive members of society.

These excerpts allude to a time when obedience and order were enforced through any means possible. Thus, corporal punishment of infant, child and juvenile wards was commonly used. That these practices were not unique to Switzerland is known. Another important film documentary is: Swiss psychologist Alice Miller elaborates on the term in the nineteen eighties. The first school for social work opened its doors to women in In , the University of Zurich opened a Department of Pedagogy with specialization in social pedagogy.

In the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century, institutions for infants, children and youth were profoundly understaffed. This resulted in infants and children being treated like objects on an assembly line. Children in these mass-care institutions spent most of their time without human interaction and with nothing to do. Most importantly, they do not take on the role of a parent or other permanent caretaker. The figure Daskind references through her features and darker complexion mental and physical disability as well as coloring as reasons why she was not adopted immediately after being dropped off at the government office.

Far into the twentieth century, infants and children who, like the protagonist, showed signs of Hospitalism, were generally written off as mentally retarded and physically challenged and were therefore left in institutions. These practices too, were not unique to Switzerland. This knowledge has in recent years reached the media: Spitz First Year of Life; a psychoanalytic study of normal and deviant development of object relations New York: International University Press, Some of his research documentaries have in recent years been posted on YouTube.

This account alludes, furthermore, to a tradition that can be traced back to the first foundling homes in eighteenth century Italy: This was, for example, the case in the Foundling Home S. Catarina in Milan. Volker Hunecke, Die Findelkinder von Mailand: Kinderaussetzungen und aussetzende Eltern Stuttgart: Excellent books about the history of abandonment in Europe are: Kertzer, Sacrificed for Honor. John Henderson and Richard Wall London: Routledge, , The University of Chicago Press, This is a problem I address in later chapters and chapter sections.

This resulted in the closure of many of these institutions and in children being placed with farmers in exchange for a very small board and lodging money. Schlussbericht zuhanden des Regierungsrats des Kanton Luzern. Kleine Verlag, , 71ff, 84ff. These institutions took the place of waning public resources and were built to rescue poor and neglected children in danger of hunger and of corruption from the alleged negative role models their parents provided.

Oldenbourg, , The twentieth century saw an unprecedented increase in the specialization of institutions that opened their doors to receive the seemingly never-ending stream of children and youth in need of extrafamilial care. Verdingkinder und Jugendrecht, ed. Rotpunktverlag, , Strafrecht und Strafvollzug, ed. Fredi Lerch and Erwin Marti, Zurich: Many members of this diverse group, the narrative stresses, were robbed of their childhood: The narrator continually provides elements which function as allusions to the history of the Swiss Yenish.

Young and unmarried pregnant women were forced to give birth in these institutions, and to give the child up for adoption or into state care. It did not matter whether the young mother wanted to keep their child, whether a parent was willing to provide for and parent her or his child. Many of these children lost in the process all family connections and ended up family-less. Interviews with family members, Interview with family member These techniques are not employed for fear of telling the story, but deliberately and skilfully to develop suspense, heighten dramatic effects and to keep readers at an emotional distance so they can reflect critically on what is being presented.

An einem Tag wie dem heutige, kalt und abweisend. On a day like today, cold and repellent. They are reddened from the cold, the faces, and Kari Kenel notices that none of the children wears a coat. As if they were part of a meat-market, deliberately dressed incompletely, to make it easier for his gaze to assess the state of their bodies.

The children hide their shame behind brisk, abrupt motions, but they are quiet. Stay straight, while they are inspected by the married couple. Goods, given free for viewing and sale. In a first step, the children were dressed in clean clothes to be inspected for physical health and strength. In a second step, children in need of community support were auctioned off in public markets to the lowest bidder. Fawer who stated in This does not mean the slave trade ended then. Robinson, who shows concisely how slavery and racism were first developed and applied within Europe, and then applied to non-Europeans.

University of North Carolina Press, , Enakshi Dua and Angela Robertson Toronto: Ashgate, , Boswell, The Kindness of Strangers. Foster parents had, for example, to be able to provide adequate food, a bed and clothing. How problematic this was is explored in how Daskind ends up with the Kenels, and in why and how the decision is made to re-place her. In addition, to reduce the spreading of infectious diseases, in particular tuberculosis, Swiss cantons started to pass bills in the first quarter of the twentieth century making the receiving of a foster child contingent upon a health permit.

Research has shown that these laws were often not effective. Tuberculosis ravaged Europe in the first quarter of the twentieth century. The effectiveness of the laws was questioned. Loosli wrote in a biting commentary about what legal protection for children in community and state care really meant. He described a case where a highly esteemed official sexually abused a twelve-year-old foster boy. When charges were finally pressed, the perpetrator was sentenced to ten days in prison and let go on probation. Despite the good intensions, these laws were implemented in rural regions with significant delays and did not include the large group of children placed privately.

Those children and youth remained without legal protection. Rotpunkt, , At the same time, the right to perform corporal punishment was suspended from the Swiss law. The new law, based on the smaller revision, was enacted on January 1st, Nevertheless, abuse and neglect continue to be detailed in research reports, media and personal accounts. One of the reasons why foster parents were barely compensated for their work until the nineteen seventies was that one wanted to prevent that just anybody could take in a child.

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Instead, only citizens who had a good reputation, who were hard working and able to support themselves financially could receive a child. Moreover, it was often well known who were good foster parents, and who were not. The town-hall meeting, illustrates poignantly the conflicting interests the protagonist, representing foster children, is trapped by. Because placements in institutions are much more expensive than placements in foster families, the administration prefers that Daskind be placed privately within the very community that does not want her.

The customer is in this case primarily the community and the foster-mother. This in turn puts the protagonist at risk of non-permanency. In a first step, I analyze how the un-familying of children is problematized and then show how the interconnection of indirect, i. The novel explores and exposes the violent nature of the structures and notions, which I read as being part of a Foucauldean power-knowledge network, that un-family children and youth in the first place.

The second part of my analysis of violence in Daskind focuses on violence the protagonist inflicts. Daskind not only struggles against the violence she experiences but also exercises violence and with that power as defined by Foucault. Social laws and customs are supported by the more official structures of science, church and law, as well as their institutions and representatives. The narrator stresses herewith how customs and laws continue to un-family children. Mehr illustrates in this narrative how the portrayed society, representing Western societies, ensures and maintains order, which is perceived as a form and expression of power and knowledge as theorized by Foucault.

This discursive network, which constitutes subjects through discipline, permeates all levels of society. Leni who drops off her newborn child without the influence of any apparent outside force, illustrates the element of self-discipline. The town hall meeting, on the other hand, signifies how discipline is enforced from outside. Long hair was in many cultures seen as a symbol of power and freedom.

If unbound, long hair signifies sexual permissiveness. In contrast, short hair stands for restrained sexuality, and shorn off hair for celibacy. Monks and nuns cut or shave off their hair voluntarily as a sign of submission to God. It thus reflects an existing power imbalance. Their hair is a signifier of their uniqueness, personality, and in some cases a visible sign of their origin. To Epistle to the Hebrews: Samson from the Old Testament lost his super-human strength as soon as his hair was shorn off. In the case of girls, it furthermore defeminizes them, makes them gender neutral and appear younger than they are, and therefore puts them into more malleable and manageable age group, i.

Caring for shorn hair is less time consuming, overall easier and therefore much cheaper than caring for long hair. Cutting off their hair was a way to ensure that they would, for example, not bring lice into the house or institution. Mental, spiritual and corporal disciplining, as executed by the nuns and later by foster parents and villagers, were ways of how order and power were instilled, internalized and This was particularly important in mass-care institutions. She is the uncanny. In fact, the child of unknown origin is for her a daily reminder that some of those who break these rules are actually rewarded i.

Frieda never wanted Daskind in the first place and treats her accordingly as a misfit. Before Daskind was conceived, he thought of marrying Leni. Calling her names and chasing her through the streets are some of the more benign things the local children picked up from the adults in their lives. The novel shows that Mehr, Daskind, 91ff. This is, furthermore, an allusion to E.

Following this semantic trail, a meaning that goes beyond the Freudian analysis emerges: The long list of parenting advice of how mothers of the region should care for their crying children signifies how much a society invests into child rearing of familied children and how that knowledge, whether filled with superstition or not, is passed on from generation to generation.

Juxtaposing the familied with the un-familied child, the narrator concludes: The protagonist does experience trauma on multiple levels, but she never has any feelings of desire for any of the men, or women, in her life. When a child like Thechild cries at night, at most an indifferent moon hangs in the sky, perhaps an owl cries. This means, further, that Daskind cannot allow herself to dream or feel homesick, as: The author argues in Daskind that to be un-familied multiplies the risk of experiencing violence and augments the duration and severity of occurring violence.

Their special needs include additional measures to protect them from abuse. It is important to note that not all of the abuse happens at the hands of non-family caretakers. However, when no, or little, long-term and trusting relationship develop between caretakers and a child or youth in care, that young person is unlikely to ask for help or to relay early warning signs of imminent abuse. More recent research across Western Europe reveals similar findings. So is Daskind, for example, easily forgotten even by those who are officially responsible for her.

Frieda, readers learn, forgets Daskind every afternoon, and Kari forgets her when he takes her for a walk in the forest. Not only do they not hear Daskind leave the house, they also seem not to hear Lacher entering her bedroom. Indeed, Kari was aware of what Lacher did to Daskind. Lachers Tod hatte Fragen aufgeworfen, denen er sich nur ungern stellte. Suddenly, he felt like an accomplice of the boarder, who came and went in his Chalet for two years and had left behind ugly marks.

This is, for example, the case at the University of Siegen: As well as in British Columbia, Canada: Creating Permanency for Youth in and from Care. The portrayal of how the nameless psychologist assesses Daskind with Dr. His violent interactions do not end there. PuddleDancer Press, , He gives Daskind multiple physical exams, which would have revealed that she is physically abused and at high risk of being sexually abused.

Es ist ihm nicht leicht ums Herz. This does not weigh lightly on his heart. Certainly not, […] duty calls. They recommend that further research be undertaken on the issue. Berlin, , http: That this was not limited to German-language Europe comes more and more to light: Polio vaccine, for example, was tested on children in US orphanages, as well as on people in Africa. SAGE Publications, , Einen Ort des Vertrauens. A place of trust. Pastor Knobel, another apparent role model of this society, lives and works in accord with the same principles. Job loss is apparently a fate many pastors endured if they went against the backwards thinking of a rural parish.

April , , http: The narrative explores, however, a more sinister aspect of this practice: The reason for re-moving Daskind is not concern for her wellbeing. The primary goal Ibid. Switzerland was one of the last Europe countries to grant women the right to vote. This practice lasted into the late nineteen seventies. This means they have to adjust to a new team of adults whom for the time being are in charge of their lives and partially responsible for them. In addition to the emotional and physical effects children experience with every change of placement, they face similar challenges as immigrant children.

It is further important to note that the number of placements is not automatically identical to the number of caregivers. This creates an additional arc of suspense of what might come to pass: There the figure Octavio says to his son Max: Schiller, Die Piccolomini , 5. The first three lines imply that the protagonist hopes for different times, when she would able to live without constant fear.

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Line four changes this reading and brings to the fore that the young girl may actually be waiting for a time when she can hit somebody without having to fear the consequences. The portrayed contradictory feelings separate the poetry insert with regard to content into two stanzas. The second half of the insert, lines four, five and six, introduces the element of deliberate and careful planning of a violent act, including the selection of a victim at the hands of the young female protagonist.

This in turn highlights early in the novel that Daskind is exposed to immense violence, which affects her severely, and stresses that the abuse started long before the narrative begins. The poetry insert underscores that the protagonist lives a life full of fear and that she is on the constant lookout for danger, in the village as well as in the foster home.

The will, desire and hope to hit, whether once somebody specific, or anybody at any point, is highlighted when one reads only alternating lines, starting with line two followed by the stanza consisting of line one, three and five: The outcome, the narrator stresses, depends on what examples her immediate environment and society as a whole set for her. On the one hand, they are perceived as dangerous.

Being seen as slow or dumb was not only a reason to not be adopted or taken into a foster family in the first Ibid. To cope with her life, she internalizes, step by step, the abuse she is exposed to. The protagonist re-enacts through the doll the sexual and physical abuse she experiences, and uses the toy as a site of projection for her anger and hopelessness: Beats faster now, Daskind, jaws locked in the fabric, tears apart the shred of fabric-body, The narrator introduces the doll to make the abuse Daskind experiences explicit, and to convey the extensive damage the assault causes and how the abuse diminishes Daskind as a person: Sie schreibt in ihrem Buch Warum internationale Wohlfahrtspflege notwendig ist" Es gibt im Kulturkreis der heutigen Menschheit kein Land mehr, das sich selbst genugt und ohne Beziehungen zu anderen Landern bestehen kann.

Die Lander sind voneinander abhangig, in wirtschaftlicher, sozialer, geistig-sittlicher Beziehung" Salomon ; zit. In Zeiten von Internationalisierung, Europaisierung und Globalisierung wird die internationale Perspektive unerlasslich. Der Vergleich ist in diesem Zusammenhang ein wichtiges Werkzeug, um ein besseres Verstandnis der padagogischen Prozesse im Allgemeinen, aber auch der einzelnen Systeme, wie z.

Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, uber den eigenen Tellerrand" hinauszuschauen und die Heimerziehung in Deutschland und England in einigen Teilbereichen miteinander zu vergleichen. Sie soll Beispiel dafur sein, wie durch das Feststellen von Kongruenzen, Affinitaten aber auch Divergenzen der Blick fur das eigene System gescharft werden kann, um im Anschluss Zukunftsperspektiven fur das eigene Land anzuregen und zu diskutieren. Paperback - Trade Pages: Review This Product No reviews yet - be the first to create one! Subscribe to our newsletter Some error text Name. Email address subscribed successfully.

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