We have been silent a long time now. Like before. We live in shame … Like before.
BUT THAT’S ENOUGH NOW!
On one morning at 6:30 on the 20.08.99 we were sleeping. The kids, too. The doorbell rang. I went to open half sleeping, because if someone rings at this time, it would have to be important … I thought.
Three men in uniform were standing in front of the door: “Good morning, is this the home of Mr. Blumenthal?”
ME: “Yes, but he is sleeping – well, it is very early… What is the matter?”
THEM: “We have an order to do a house-wide search.”
ME: “WHAT????”
THEM: “Can we enter?”
ME: “One moment please, I’ll wake him up.”
Without my permission “yes, you can enter” they were standing right in our working-room.
Udo, half-sleeping: “What is the matter?”
The friendly men from the police: “Mr. Blumenthal, on 07.07.99 a report was filed against you for the spreading of childporn, and we are here to take your computers. Do you accept that?”
Me: “Who made the report?”
He: “We are not allowed to discuss that.”
We were both really shocked. We were not able to react. We could not move. And the policemen were tearing down our pcs.
A thought came to my mind as I was standing there … we were supposed to be spreading childporn? Who would say that WE spread childporn? I did not know how to react. What should I do?
The children woke up. They asked me questions I could not answer. I was sick, the right words were simply missing.
I started the try to defend myself. Just with words. Anti-Kinderporno e.V.i.G. would never spread childporn. We fight against that shit on the net. We talk to parents, teachers, and teenagers/kids, how they can respond if they find it. How they can protect themselves, how they can protect kids, what to do if they find childporn. THAT is what we do. How could someone think of us spreading childporn! Everybody can read on our sites what we do!
The policemen were very idiotic taking apart our pcs. They were not even able to shut down a computer!
So I went to a “technican” at one of our PCs (our PCs are always running), to help him shut down our PCs.
The technican: “IF YOU TOUCH ONE THING HERE…”
I was shocked, I didn’t think that cleanly shutting down a computer could be a bad thing … I took a step back. Udo was still speechless.
I tried to phone our lawyer, which was impossible at that time in the morning, as you can imagine.
The policeman phoned Hofheim and called for a bigger car to transport all out stuff. He said on the phone: “Our car is filled. We need a bigger transporter to get all the stuff away.”
And a short time later a police-transporter came with four policemen and helped to carry out our technical stuff.
Then Udo covercame his shock and said, that this could not be real, to treat people that fight against childporn like that.
The policeman (he was supposed to be the “commander”): “Com’on, don’t be so rude. You have a right to appeal this.”
The whole thing went on for over an hour. They even took our kids’ PCs out of our home! We tried to calm down the kids, give them an explanation, but we were simply not able to tell them anything. Well, they went to school.
We continued trying to reach our lawyer. Hours later, we found him but what he said was no help for us. It would take months until we would been told anything. The computer would be scanned and only afterwards would we get them back.
We sat there and thought how the things should proceed. If they could proceed. Should we give up? We are a family with 5 kids. So we decided to buy new PC and to fight on where we stopped. No one can stop us.
Udo was working while I was unable to work, because my computer was not there.
The next day some people from the youth welfare office visited us. The woman said in the following talk that we should think about if our home environment would be the best place for our kids to grow up, that she would keep an eye on us.
NO! – I thought! NO! – this is not true! I am in the wrong movie! Our kids know what we do, but just in theory. They accept us and our fight. We talk a lot, but we miss out on doing a lot of things so that we can work. A lot of spare time is filled with work in which wonderful things can be done. A lot of money is spent for work, money that could be spent on the family. But all five of our children accept the things we do.
SO NO REASON TO GIVE UP!
The woman from the youth welfare office said (after we talked a lot): “Why has it to be that topic? Why can’t you be active on other topic?”
I answered: “We know that reaction. Would you like it more if we would fight for more green places? What would you like more??? Like the three monkeys: hear nothing, see nothing, say nothing? Just shut up???”
NO WE CAN NOT SHUT UP!
That was the story…..
And now our feelings…
We have been shamed. We didn’t know any details about anything. Really nothing. We have been silenced for three months – but we keep on trying. We didn’t have anything anymore. All our information and data were on the PCs. Until everything was rebuilt ……
Silent, like we were before…..
At the beginning of November 99 we changed lawyers and finally have been told on what the report was based. And who made the report.
You won’t believe what we heard there.
UDO BLUMENTHAL HAS BEEN REPORTED BECAUSE HE WAS SPREADING CHILDPORN. EVERYTHING IS BASED ON THE SITE WHERE WE WROTE ABOUT OUR ABUSE!!!
We couldn’t believe what we read. We were speechless. We never would have imagined THAT site. Both Udo and I have been silent for many long years about our abuse because of shame and fear. And we should be silent again? That can’t be true!
That has nothing to do with childporn. If that were the case then all the survivors who have written anout their abuse, who have broken their silence must take down their sites on the net or they could all be punished.
We are not ready yet to give up. No one can stop us. We will go on. Whether the authorities understand that or not! Our goal is to protect our children and our teenagers. And nothing else!
WE WILL NEVER GIVE UP! WE DON’T CARE IF THE AUTHORITIES WANT THAT OR NOT! N E V E R ! ! !
To this day we have yet to have a hearing.
Greetings,
SpinX