We Were Children

source: We Were Children

As an Oji-Cree Métis mother, daughter & granddaughter, and a survivor of intergenerational trauma, I hope that everyone will attempt to watch this program. It is about the tragic legacy of residential schools, told by two survivors who endured unthinkable horror from the time they were so young. If You can imagine the families left behind, imagine the fate of thousands of missing children who never returned home, and the survivors of these prisons passed off as schools, then please share with another. All Peoples from this country called Canada must be a part of understanding the truth so hat healing becomes possible.

Canada has proven that they are no better than other countries that use slavery and oppression as a passage of rite to those that have their own culture and beliefs. Hearing the heartbreaking story of two survivors that lived through the government funded schools known as Indian schools will make you angry but empathic towards those that were forced to attend such horrible institutions. It is a confirmed fact that priests rape young children so whoever believes that this never occurred are delusional and sadistic individuals. Learn your history because colonizers will twist the truth!!!!!!!!!!

I think this movie was incredibly created. The vile way in which these children were treated, should not be forgotten. This is a huge part of history that unfortunately isn't profound enough. These children were innocently sent away to these schools, legally might I add, and tortured, raped, and torn away from their culture and nationality. The church should not be about that, these people tortured these children in the name of God. This is NOT what Christianity is about. God bless all the children that went through what they did. This will go down in history as one of the most cruel acts!!!!

Lyna was taken away from her parents to a residential school with priests and nuns forcing her to speak English and to learn French. She was stripped down and washed by two nuns. The shower room has absolutely no privacy at all - it is just a big shower room. The actress playing Lyna is so cute when she jumps and wiggles into bed. The girls and boys are separated. Each gender has a big room full of beds and that is where they all sleep and they are referred to by their number. When they get up they get dressed then have to eat porridge, leftovers from the past weeks. Glen asked to be taken home after seeing another boy do so and the priest takes him to the priests' home to the basement where he is forced into a tiny room and locked. He hears a girl crying next door and two priests go in and out. A nun rescues him and tells on the priest. She leaves by Christmas for speaking up and later the priest leaves as well. One man reassures the boy the priest will not hurt him again. Lyna faints in class from not eating enough. She goes to the infirmary and creeps to the boys' side when she hears them crying. A boy is bent over and naked. A priest is behind him. On another day the priest comes to the girls' side where Lyna was alone and rapes her. Many children got raped. Glen tried to run away with his cousin where they walk to their aunt's. Their aunt however called the school to take them back. Glen and Lyna looked forward to their last day. Glen shakes hands with the priests and is off on his own. He is an orphan and he envied those with parents. The residential schools scarred the children and many of the survivors turned to alcohol or suicide. Glen contemplated suicide because of his alcoholism but his two children followed him and he remembered he cannot leave them. Glen passed away in 2011 and told his daughter his wish was to tell his story.

I cried all throughout this film because it is so saddening what they forced those poor kids to go through!! I mean "they" as the bad guys! The Catholic, Anglican and United churches along with the Indian/Northern Affairs and the RCMP were all in cahoots with each other in making sure that every Native child were to be brought to these hell holes disguised as "residential schools". Of course, they were only death camps not designed to teach anything to any of the children but to destroy them from the inside out! The priests and nuns at these dastardly places were under orders to remove anything that was Indigenous out of the children. Thankfully, there are modern-day heroes like Kevin Annett who has been exposing all the truths and facts about the schools for close to 25 years now, if not more. Anyway, this film deserves a perfect 10 since it exposes a lot of what happened in those places.

It was disgusting how they treated those babies! Nasty ass priests raping boys and girl ugh. It's very informative about what went on back then and heart breaking.

I could not stomach these fragments. This movie will bring you to tears and disappointment with this past history of Canada that no one knew about until recent years. Should this movie be for truth and reconciliation? Never. We should always talk about this.

Just in case you thought Canada was full of the only sinless, benevolent white people in the world, back it up. It seems they were on the same page as Australia with snatching indigenous children from their homes and "civilizing"/"assimilating" them. Canada did it with help from the Catholic Church in order to make them good Catholics as well. If you're unfamiliar with the Catholic Church's track record when it comes to youth, watch "Mea Maxima Culpa," "Twist of Faith," "Judgment," or "Deliver Us from Evil." "For over 130 years, Canada's First Nations children were legally required to attend Government-funded schools run by various orders of the Christian faith. Beginning in the late 1850's, over 150,000 Aboriginal children were legally forced to attend Indian residential schools in Canada. The schools were part of a wider program of assimilation designed to integrate the Aboriginal population into 'Canadian society.' At their peak in the 1950's, there were 80 Indian Residential schools across the country. The last Indian Residential school closed in 1996." "We Were Children" is the story of two survivors: Lyna Hart and Glen Anaquod. They candidly, and sometimes tearily, speak of the fear and the abuse they suffered at their Catholic schools from general meanness to imprisonment to rape. Don't take it from me, let the survivors speak. Telling enough was Glen's statement: "I don't know what kind of god they have that loves to hurt another human being. Their understanding of god is a kind person, you know, that's forgiving. And all the things they did to us, what kind of god do they have?" While Lynda Hart said: "I believe that they were trying to annihilate us. And they couldn't because what they did to us, and everything we've had to live through, only made us stronger-- made us more determined."

For the first time in my life I'm embarrassed to be a Canadian... I stumbled upon this movie by fluke. I actually haven't even watched the entire movie as I'm writing this right now. I keep having to pause it and cry. I always heard of residential schools growing up but I never really took the time to understand what it really meant. Which I'm embarrassed about. The recent discoveries in British Columbia has literally horrified me and cuts my heart. And this movie proves that these poor children were literally in hell. It horrifies me. I really hope all those lost souls are safe and sound and happy.