The state child-abuse case that shook
By Martin Hongisto, B Sc
(Econ.), author and writer
|
The text of the lecture is reproduced
here with Martin Hongisto's kind consent. |
Back in 1979, a weird
process commenced in the Nordic Kingdom of Sweden. As the time went, it was to develop into one
of the greatest human rights - and justice malpractice - scandals in the modern
history of this country. It is publicly
known as the ALEXANDER CASE.
To understand why, the
reader perhaps should know something about the Swedish society. This is an ancient kingdom with an
aristocracy that long into the 1800´s still had much to say. The expressed class society caused into a
counter reaction = when common plebiscite was introduced in the early 1900´s,
the reds soon gained power and have kept the majority of seats in the Swedish
parliament (Riksdag) more than half a century, with one interruption or two.
The absolutely greatest
political party is the Social Democrats (SAP) and with the support of mainly
communists (V) they form a bloc that is guaranteed more than 50 % of the voices
in this parliament. They use to do
things their way. Nasty commentators
sometimes name
For my part, adventure
started in early 1971, when I met a very charming lady, baroness EVA
AMINOFF. She was a celebrity up here,
beautiful, intelligent and warm –hearted.
I was a young, inexperienced man, my
marketing management studies still ahead of me.
We were positively birds
of the same feather and one sunny day in May month, with birds singing and
roses blossoming, we became a love couple.
Thirty-two years have passed now and we still are that.
My lady Eva had a
two-year old son called Alexander, originating from the disaster she called her
(previous) marriage. We three from now
on used to live in a house on the
Nobody knows, how it
started – my little newfangled family running into trouble. In fact, the reds had during their long
period in power constructed voluminous social welfare apparatus. Its task was supposed to be helping our good
citizens in trouble (mainly economic) but as years went on, it started to live
its own life in an escalating scale and developed into a mere control system
with tentacles everywhere. One, well,
division of this army of social servants was the Children Welfare Board.
It was this organisation
that hit us. How it started: someone
REPORTED us.
We Swedes have a nasty
little tradition: we report each other to the Social Authorities. As when my neighbour reckons I booze too
much; or when he (she) thinks I abuse my wife; or he/she sees my child do wrong
things.
Alexander did wrong
things. He frequented our neighbours and
told them he never got anything to eat at home.
The trick was very functional: he gained a lot of candy and pastries on
his tourneys. His disadvantage was that
someone took his Les Misérables story for reality, and reported us to the
social authorities.
They now started a file
on us and this caused us being under their looking glass from this day and
infinitely on. The Alexander Case had
begun … to live its own life.
This was now year 1974
and Alexander, six years old, had started in a preparatory school
(förskola). Attending school is
compulsory in
”Mobbing” is one school
problem, so even in
Now the school reported
ALEXANDER of being bullyish (stökig).
We spoke English at
home, and with most of our friends, and as a kid of four years Alexander
started in the Anglo-American
Next REPORT given by the
school, received by the authorities: Alexander’s command of the Swedish
language was too bad because we spoke Finnish at home.
Swedish = language
spoken by some 10 million people mainly in
We did Not speak Finnish
with Alexander, neither Swedish. Our
family's verbal communication media was the English language.
The children welfare
authorities invited themselves to visit our home. The meeting was stormy.
When my Eva heard their
accusations, she grew angry. She felt
these people had put her status as a good mother in question and that hurt her
feelings very badly. She now described
the two social workers, Ms. Gunnel Lindhé and Ms. Clara Carlsson, as figures
responsible for quite useless activities, doing work without any good results
at all. Listening to this respectless
talk from a "client", who according to their point of view, was one they
had come to assist and support as a mother, THEY now felt hurt and very much
humiliated indeed.
HIT AND RUN
They carried out our
crying, fighting child. I could do nothing.
I could not protect my family.
Humiliation was total. Eva was
no good as a mother. I was nothing as a
man. We were not enough a family in the
eyes of these people, representing a perverted construction of ideology.
Alexander was taken to
an unknown location, which, as we later learned, was the clinic for Pediatric
Psychiatry at
He was held there for
several weeks for ”diagnosis” and at the end, they gave their decision.
Alexander was to be put in a foster home and separated from us forever without
the right to visit him. Note! We were
NOT a family with disorderly economy, abuse problems, or domestic
violence. What we WERE = she, a famous,
talented, well-paid journalist; me, a young, green economist at the beginning
of his career – and Alexander, he was a professional child.
Our home? An East End-style, rotten hole that this
miserable collection never saw the trouble to tidying up? Wrong.
This was one of the
biggest villas on Lidingö, twelve rooms, two kitchens, four bathrooms - approx.
4000 sq. feet and a view of the sea. The
Aristocrats vs.
Reds. The reds won this round.
We were allowed a last
farewell meeting with our son before the Ultimate Separation. I had a plan.
In that simple barrack
behind the actual hospital complex, one
window was almost always open. I soon learned that was the laundry room of the
clinic. That very window should be our
ticket to freedom.
The day for farewell
came and we drove to the hospital in our navy blue 1961 Simca four door Saloon. I turned around the vehicle 180° and placed
her under that window before I parked her.
The getaway car.
In there, we sat in the
visitors’ room all three and two turnkeys were present. As Eva upheld them, Alex and I went out to
the corridor for the last father - and - son talk forever. The laundry-room door was open, so was the
window as was customary. Our boy Alex
chose to be tossed out through that window and I followed him right after.
What followed was almost
a car chase through the streets of
We fled abroad. Left our beautiful, safe home with all the
classy furniture and oil paintings and ethnic objects Eva had taken home from
her numerous working journeys around the globe.
We stayed almost half a
year on the Spanish Costa Del Sol. We
grown-apes (as Alex sometimes called us) continued with our literary
activities, Alex was placed in the English ”Sunny View school” in those
parts. After five months, our residencia
came to an end so we decided to leave for
We established ourselves
in the
Four or five sections of
the article series were published in the Finnish ladies magazine Jaana, then
this ”crime committed by Sweden - a true story” was cut by demand of the
Swedish Embassy in Helsinki, the capital of Finland. We do not know what
methods they chose to make the Finns kneel.
Early 1977, we returned
to
You do not believe this
That was what we
believed. In fact, our file continued
its own life. It grew!
Reckless
accusations. Some of the authorities
decided to Sherlock Holmes on us and went digging in our garbage bin. He/she found a bottle of California White,
empty of course.
From the files: Baroness
Aminoff goes stoned all day! She never
was.
From the file
again: A great number of men have been
seen to visit lady Eva.
As all this happened, we
had rather lively contacts with international mass media, or they used to contact
us for details. Most journalists were
men at that time.
Besides: I was at home
the whole time. The pimp?
The unwritten
accusation: Eva had been writing
critical articles to the international press where she questioned the basic
idea of the Swedish society structure, the welfare state. She now had turned into a dissident.
They hit again,
Those times, the
Bolivian government had introduced a scheme to habitate the fertile lands of
Abapo Izozog, a territory between the
She informed the
hometown authorities and applied for school vacation for the months
needed. In the meantime, she had secured
her son a place in the Swedish school in
The day before they
traveled, Alexander proposed his mother to stay at home from the school this
last day. Mother told him to go: best do
everything according to the paragraphs.
So to school he went, our
little Alexander, and as he disappeared behind the bend, he disappeared from
our lives for four years, eight months and sixteen days.
The only information
they gave us was that, our boy had been dispatched to a location kept secret
for us, for an indefinite time. Logically, we commenced with our operation
search.
It turned out to be an
Orwellian task through a labyrinth of mirrors.
Nothing was real.
We employed a private
eye. His name was Sam and he was very
professional. They did not let him see
revealing documents. Well
I knew a friend in the
State Social Department who had access to their data base. We made a run and … found Alexander. But not Aminoff. Svensson.
Alexander Svensson.
They had deprived our
son of his good family name! ”Svensson”
is used as a joke name precisely as ”Mr. John Smith”.
We tried per his social
security code that includes date of birth.
They had forged it! The only
thing correct was our address, No. 10 Neptune, Lidingö. Dead end.
The next move. We
started to search for him physically. We
had been informed that there were certain areas with relatively high foster
home frequency in this country and we now drove around in our ancient Volvo and
knocked on doors. Gradually we learned
that taking children from their legal parents and planting them in a foster
home in the country side was a big business!
Someone counted out its yearly turnover exceeding that of the auto maker
Volvo Ltd…! Well, to be fair, there WERE
problem families but … was this the best method to cure them. A broken up family is no more a family.
Besides, you do NOT
confiscate a child from a family with our living conditions. The reasons must have been very …
specific. Eva was sure of this was a
vendetta for the inconvenient texts she had written about
More to write had to
come. The international mass media
learned of us and now they flooded our home on Lidingö. There followed shaking
descriptions of how families were treated in the
The world famous
psychiatrist Ronald Laing learnt of our case.
He had worked a lot on problems and crisis arising in families and he
contacted us. We invited him to
Ronald now decided to
hold a seminary in
In spite of all that
above described activity, the front of the dark forces was unbroken. Three or four years had passed, without a
whisper of Alexander was heard.
- He is dead, cried
Eva. – They have caused an accident with
lethal outcome. This total silence is to
cover their crime. They killed my child!
When the angel lands or prisoner no. 6001
There are a few personalities on this planet that
stand tall as beacons to light the route for the rest of us.
One of them is Mrs. Birgitta Wolf, known as the Prisoner’s Angel.
- You have been allowed
to visit every given prisoner at your wish over the whole planet, without
exception, says Eva. Six thousand of
them I have heard. Perhaps they will let
you visit, this your prisoner no. 6001, too.
They didn’t. However Birgitta never takes ”no” for an
answer.
- I’ll contact the Prime
Minister.
Birgitta Wolf knew all
the people you should know. Even some
weirdoes like Hermann and Adolph, during the war. She sent a telegram to Mr. Olof Palme, the
then Prime minister of
-Master Olof, your info
Department must have been sleeping sweetly.
I brought a big bunch of foreign papers with me, for you to see.
For our Prime Minister,
the whole spectacle is a complete surprise.
He didn’t know anything. So he
says.
- I’ll have my own press
conference.
This turns to an
Alexandergate. A Nordic kingdom gathers the journalists to assure them that we
do not kidnap our under age citizens at all!
The headlines soon will reveal the contradiction. Scandal!
Mega size.
The high society
steamrolls on regardless the opinions in the big nasty world outside. In May 1984 (!) there will be a court case in
the rural town of Strängnäs with the aim of removing Eva’s legal custody over
her own child and pass it over to some stranger.
We drive to Strängnäs to
court. Now this happens.
We are sitting in the
Volvo outside of the Courthouse and eating our sandwiches. Alexander is standing inside the building and
sees us. It is now he makes his
decision. He’ll run.
The terror
What had really happened
that May day 1979 and after? Alexander
tells us.
The two policemen that
seized him hated their task but they had an order to follow. To walk into a school class in the middle of
a lesson, taking a ten year old pupil hostage, screaming, fighting for his
freedom just doesn’t feel like an honourable mission.
Alex was declared foster
child without the right to meetings with his family and placed on a foster
home. This was an old dairy farm, remade
to a … home. It was situated on a tiny
island called Stallarholmen, somewhere in the great Swedish lake system
Mälaren.
The supreme head, the foster
father, was Mr. Sture Svensson, the motherly care came from his fiancée
Marianne. There were two or three other
foster children, the composition of this ”family” was variable.
Sture was one of those
"les misérables" that got everything wrong. He landed in a foster home when he was very
young. Followed small crimes and an
institution. There he learned smarter
crimes and was honoured with bed and breakfast and all in an ordinary
prison. At top of his career he was an
expert in blowing safety boxes but was placed in one: His Majesty’s maximum
security unit, called Kumla.
With his six feet, 220 pounds and hot charm, he was the
guaranteed Alpha male in his gang. Still
he got bored with that kind of limited freedom and decided he wanted to quit his
criminal career.
The High Society
assisted him, of course. They found a
suitable job for him. As a foster
father.
Why didn’t Alexander
escape from his prison?
They had a daily
routine. The main activity was
rebuilding a steel hulled small tugboat to a cruiser intended for
Sture Svensson did beat
the children. ”Beat” is a nice
description of his abuse against his protégés.
He could hit the boys
with planks, smash them with boat wire.
Alex still carries scars of this wire on his back.
There was a girl, we
call her Suzanne. One day Mr. Svensson
smashed her right over her face. Her
spectacles were destroyed, her eyesight … not.
Says Alexander: -I was
beaten, beaten, beaten…regular
brutality!
There was a boat on the
island, but the oars were locked up.
Besides: Sture told Alexander that the day he even dreamed of running
away he could count himself as dead, alternative wishing he was. Alexander knew this was no joke.
When Alexander saw us
that Spring day outside of Stängnäs Courthouse, he understood this was the
ultimate maximum range turning point.
Now, regardless the cost - or never.
That night, he
"borrowed" Sture's boat and paddled with his arms and hands to an
island where he knew they had a pair of oars. Then he rowed to Strängnäs small
harbour, tied the boat and found a coin telephone box. He had a quarter or two in is pocket so he
could … call home.
Twenty years have passed
now so this is history. Or is it? For us involved, the answer is
"No". We’ve got to live with
this to the end of our days, especially Alexander, the terror victim.
Want to read the
details? They will come. I have written a book of the way we were, it
is in for examination before I turn it over to my publisher. It is in Swedish so far, ”Vitsippornas tid”
(”Anemone season”), some 300-400 pages.
It is a cruel story and I hate it, but it was a must. A message to be delivered.
Alexander now lives in
Eva, the celebrated
Scandinavian journalist and traveling writer, does not write any more. In the end, the above told caused her good
health to collapse. As I write this, the
woman thou gave me sits at my side as
always, in her wheelchair.
O Lord, forgiveth them
their deed. I DO NOT.
Lidingö,
Martin Hongisto
Member of NCHR
The
Alexander Case - A confiscated child
Preface by Brita Sundberg-Weitman
The
Alexander Aminoff Case
by Sven Hessle
Alexander
Aminoff's linguistic proficiency in childhood
by Marianne Haslev Skånland
Spectre
of Children's Gulag haunts Sweden
by Chris Mosey
Swedish
couple enduring USA poverty to keep son
by John Brinkley
A
Family's Flight From the Welfare State
by Jacob YOUNG with Joan WESTREICH in New York and Donna FOOTE in London
The
Enerström Case: A Disgrace to Swedish Democracy
By Britt Arenander
Back to Articles