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HEAR US
“Hear us fathers, brothers, cousins, and yes, even grandfathers and mothers – the long term effects of sexual violations on girls and boys are incomprehensible.” Marilyn Van Derbur
“As for his brain surgery, do you realize that he went through a whole string of doctors in Montreal who refused to cut into him, stating that he needed psychiatry not surgery? He finally found one guy willing to do it, but the whole episode remains cloaked in weirdness. His former GP refuses to see him for anything since then. In my view, it is part of his placing responsibility for all behavior on physical problems; the ‘there is a pill for everything’ approach, which side-steps facing up to things.”
My former sister-in-law, an RN, on my brother Tom’s brain surgery.
MARILYN VAN DERBUR
(Reprinted from the Special Edition of the Lancaster Independent Paper, INCEST – A Family Tragedy; The Holzinger Story, December 2003)
There are many quotes attributed to Marilyn Van Derbur in this paper. They come from a VCR tape entitled “A Story of Hope.” It is a speech she gave to a small group in 1991.
A friend gave it to me and it is the only thing that pulled me through one of the darkest weekends of my life. My mother sent me an e-mail saying my father is a man of “utter integrity.” She said I had “deep psychic aberrations.”
My brother sent me a copy of a letter my brothers and sisters sent to Lancaster Friends Meeting. It began, “In love and sadness we wish to speak briefly of the illness of our youngest sister, Rebecca Holzinger.”
I put in the tape in desperation and was transfixed. Marilyn Van Derbur was Miss America in 1958. She survived incest by her father from age 5 through age eighteen.
The speech is riveting as she tells of her discovery and the years and years she spent in recovery and healing.
She can be contacted at P.O. Box 61099, Denver, CO 80206.
“I will say to every rapist who will violate a child this very night with acts so unspeakable her mind will be forced to leave her body, your child may be mute today, but someday your child will speak your name.
“The children will speak every single name. And as we take away the children’s secrets, we will take away the rapist’s power.”
Marilyn Van Derbur
LIP NEWS WILL NOT PUBLISH THIS AFTERNOON. PLEASE CHECK BACK TOMORROW. THANK YOU.
~ Change the Law ~
Grand Jury: No clergy abuse charges
The Philadelphia Inguirer, August 3, 2005
By Nancy Phillips, Mark Fazlollah and Craig McCoy
"The grand jury investigating sex abuse in the Philadelphia Archdiocese has prepared a report that documents decades of assaults on children by more than 50 priests – but calls for no new criminal charges.
The report, more than 500 pages long, harshly criticizes church leaders for shielding abusers."
"…The decision to not recommend criminal charges reflects a series of legal and factual issues that have hobbled prosecutors. The report is expected to call for changes in the law to make it easier to prosecute abusers.
While the assaults on minors were often horrific, the statute of limitations has run out for prosecutions in virtually every case, according to several people familiar with the investigation."
"SMOKE AND MIRRORS"
(By Lorrie McKinley, attorney for the Defendants)
“Petitioner Rebecca Holzinger (hereafter “Petitioner”) uses nothing but semantic smoke and mirrors to couch her decades-old claim for tort damages against her elderly parents for alleged abuse during her childhood as an important policy issue for this Court. …she claims that she never experienced any distress as a result of the abuse she alleges until 2002, when she was fifty years old.”
~ I stopped speaking in high school.
~ I had a dreadful high school experience.
~ I began to drink heavily in high school.
~ I gained a tremendous amount of weight in high school.
~ I moved into Holly House, a tiny “guest house” on the property in high
school.
~ I moved into an apartment in the 12th grade and had to change and
graduate from a different high school.
~ I have always had a fear of men.
~ I have never married and rarely dated.
~ And the list goes on and on and on.
“Incest was the molding experience of my entire life. Everything I have thought, said, done or felt has been influenced dramatically by that”
Marilyn Van Derbur
IT MAKES ME WONDER
And it’s whispered that soon
If we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason
And a new day will dawn
For those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter
Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin
FOR JUNE
I have received my “parents” response to my attorney’s appeal to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. The attorney is Lorrie McKinley, married to my first cousin Philip Holzinger. His father, Joseph Holzinger, was also a professor at Franklin & Marshall College all of his life. He, like my father, was a very sick man. His daughter, June, committed suicide not long ago. She said her father molested her. Oh, God, give me strength. I will tell this story. It’s the most important story I have ever told.
NO DOUBT
In the summer of 2005, there is unfortunately little doubt that some parents and others in positions of responsibility will sexually assault the young children for whom they are responsible. There can also be little doubt that some of these young victims, in order to continue to exist, banish from their conscious memory all thoughts related to these horrific events. It is also clear that these repressed memories can come to the surface many years later causing these individuals, at the time such memories surface, great suffering and emotional distress.
David S. Dessen, Esquire, “Petition For Allowanace of Appeal” before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in the case of Rebecca R. Holzinger, Petitioner, vs. Charles Holzinger and Millicent B. Holzinger, Respondents.
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