nuns to come into your room at night to rape you,

But very few of us have looked into the eyes of one of those children now grown up, many of them now parents or grandparents, and heard them tell their stories -- the raw details of what really happened behind the doors of those schools.

That is why Jacqueline Windh fought hard for her book, First Nations and the Pacific Northwest: Change and Tradition, to be released this month in Canada.

The volume was originally published in Germany to accompany a gallery exhibit in Westfalian Museum of Natural History in Muenster. The first part of the book, by museum director Prof. Alfred Hendricks, explains historical facts about the First Nations of North America for the exhibition. The second part of the book, by Windh, delves into the deeply personal and disturbing stories of 16 residential school survivors from Vancouver Island, told in their own words. For some, it was the first time in their lives they'd talked about their experiences.

'They were trained not to talk'

Windh grew up in Ontario, and did not lay eyes on a First Nations person until she was an adult. Not until she was in her 30s, after having moved to Tofino, British Columbia, did Windh really get to know an Aboriginal person. She had known only vaguely about the residential schools and what went on there. Slowly, she developed friendships in the First Nations community, eventually dating a First Nations man, and began to learn about the dark history that shrouded the families she was meeting.

It was years before she earned the trust and respect in the community necessary in order for people to open up and tell her their stories. Now, she says, many residential school victims are realizing it is time that people hear those stories so they can begin to understand the horror that lies in Canada's past, and how it has shaped the present.

"People can have more empathy if they know the truth. If you're walking in downtown Vancouver and you see a drunken Indian passed out on the side of the road, instead of just thinking, 'Why don't they get a job?' you can have a little more empathy about the whole history that brought that person to that situation."

While she originally set out to educate.....

http://thetyee.ca/Books/2009/07/06/ResidentialSchools/?utm_source=mondayheadline...

i wil vote this up if you change the title

glad her book will be published . Its a major accomplishment , of that I'm sure.

Ecclesiastical workers should all be allowed to have sex with other adults so that children will not be their targets. What was done to the children of the First Nation's People is so heinous.