By Kate Snow and Jessica Hopper
Rock Center
Luis Vega is on a mission to meet every man born in Madrid, Spain on Nov. 20, 1977. That's the day doctors told him that his baby son was stillborn, but he and his wife, Ines, believe their child was in fact stolen from the hospital.
“We have a son somewhere out there,” Luis Vega said.
The Vega family isn’t alone in believing their child was stolen. This year, more than a thousand families have come forward with claims that they were victims of baby trafficking committed by a variety of networks from the 1940s until as recently as the early 1990s.
Armed with a list of the 61 names of boys born in Madrid on the same day he lost his son, Vega is making calls and knocking on doors because he is convinced his son is alive.
“What we just want only, is to tell him, ‘You have not been abandoned,’” Vega said.
For Vega, the memory of his son’s birth is still fresh. He and his wife went to a hospital in Madrid on a Sunday in November 1977. They were already parents to one son and believed they were expecting just one more child when they received surprising news: they were having twins.
“I started to think, I got two,” Vega said. “So, I was absolutely excited, astonished.”
The excitement faded when doctors came to Vega and told him that one of the twins, a boy, was dead.
“I felt frozen,” he said.
Vega said the doctor told him, “I recommend you not see him.”
At that time in Spain, doctors were authority figures who were virtually unapproachable. Vega simply didn’t question that the doctor was telling the truth.
The doctor told Vega that the hospital would handle the burial of the baby boy. His wife, Ines, was under anesthesia and was unaware of what had happened. Vega ultimately told her the sad news.
The couple comforted one another and did their best to move on with their lives, raising their newborn daughter, Ana, and their older son.
Every year on Ana’s birthday, Luis and Ines talked about her twin, the boy they lost.
This January, Vega and his wife were eating lunch and watching TV when a news report stopped them cold and made them think that the son they’d lost 33 years ago might actually be alive.
An unbelievable story was exploding in the press, allegations that for decades, organized networks stole newborn babies from their mothers and sold the babies to other families. On January 27, more than 250 families filed cases with Spain’s attorney general. That number has since risen to nearly 1500 cases.
Vega and his wife requested documentation from the cemetery where they believed their son had been buried and sent a letter to the hospital where he had been born. Cemetery officials told them that no one had been buried at the cemetery with their family’s last name.
When Vega told his daughter, Ana, that her twin brother might be alive after all, she was shocked.
“I spent like a month with a knot in my stomach. I couldn’t eat,” she said.
Ana Vega created a blog to help in the search for her lost twin.
“We are not looking, you know, for revenge,” she said. “We just want to find him and that’s it and to, if he wants to, you know, be part of our family, great. If he doesn’t, well, you know, that’s his choice as well.”
If anyone is responsible for prompting the discovery of this dark part of Spain’s history, it is documentary filmmaker and author Montse Armengou. Armengou was among the very first to report on systematic baby stealing.
“In Spain, from a long period of time, from the ‘40s until ‘80s as a minimum, we can talk about children that were kidnapped from their families, from their mothers,” Armengou said.
It started as a form of political repression under Fascist dictator Francisco Franco. Franco seized power during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Under his leadership, the government would remove children from mothers who were political prisoners and give them to families who supported the regime.
“[In] the beginning, [it] was a political repression and after became a moral and ideological repression against single mothers. You have to know that during the Franco’s regime, the power of Catholic Church was very, very strong,” Armengou said.
Doctors, often with the help of nuns, would tell young single mothers that their child was dead or force single mothers to give their children up for adoption. At the time, single young women were still considered minors until they were 26 years old.
“It’s impossible to ask for help because you are nothing,” Armengou said. “You are only a single mother. That means that you are nothing, you are garbage, you are waste.”
The political and moral repression became a booming business with families paying the equivalent of what it would cost for an apartment, in order to obtain a child.
For those who believe they are victims of the now defunct organized networks of baby stealing, the legal process has been frustratingly slow. Despite the hundreds of cases filed, no one has been charged with any crime.
“We’re moving as fast as we can. We’re dealing with cases that are incredibly difficult,” said prosecutor Pedro Crespo who has been tasked by Spain’s attorney general to coordinate the hundreds of official investigations across Spain.
Crespo said that the passage of time, incomplete records and the fact that many of those involved are already dead has hampered the investigations.
For some, like the Vega family, the doctor they hold responsible for stealing their child is still alive.
“This bastard has taken our life,” said an emotional Luis Vega.
Vega recently became the president of S.O.S. Bebes Robados Madrid, one of the organizations helping those who think they might be victims.
Vega said that he doesn’t expect he’ll ever truly get justice, but hopes ultimately he’ll find his son.
“I’m convinced,” Vega said. “Otherwise, why [am I] going to fight…I’m fighting for this and everything.”
Editor’s Note: Kate Snow’s full report, “Stolen At Birth,” airs on Rock Center with Brian Williams on Monday, Dec. 19 at 10 p.m./9 c.
Leave a Comment:
Lo unico que puedo hacer es daler buena suerte a Luis Vega y que hojala que encuentre a su hijo.
I should have known that the Fascists and the Catholic Church would be involved in this somehow !!
.
What does the Catholic Church have anything to do with this?
Try reading the article and for a better explanation a history book
First a worldwide pattern of sexually abusing children, now this information about stealing children from single mothers. As a former Catholic, I cannot understand why people still support a church that is so utterly evil. I guess you can get away with anything if your claim that god is on your side.
SO very disturbing on many levels. As a mom I just can't imagine. My sympathies to all the victims.
nirvanalovemonkey, try reading the article. It's in there . . .
Geez, no wonder everyone's scared about American education w/ reading comprehension (or lack thereof) like this.
Please alwaysanother, these are the parties responsible for the crime, and the people who have kept it hidden for all these years. Trusting the hospitals and the catholic church to uncover the truth will work as well as trusting the catholic church to end pedophilia.
????
Oh I guess you forgot you are in the United States of America and here the language is English that my fathers and grandfathers fought for the right to speak, how dare you come and disrespect us that way. Only after a few generations of YOUR family tree have died for this country will I consider it your 'right' .
My Catholic mother once called me stupid for becoming an atheist. I refrained from asking if it was smarter to follow a church that for centuries viewed the molestation of children (and apparently kidnapping) as just a cost of doing business.
Funny, I don't recall a war for the right to speak English. Pretty sure English was spoken by the English that came here and took away the rights of the natives.
Bob: Your post 27.4, "I guess you can get away with anything if you claim that god is on your side." Thought the repub/tparty has the copyright on that line, don't they? They're still using it - con jobs. People still fall for it.
I wish them success in finding their babies. What a travesty.
alwaysanother- both religions have done many wrong things, but both religions have done many great things as well.
Earthgirl, I am not a fan of either Repubs or Demos; however, at least their crimes are based on money and power. What bothers me about the church is how it subjugates women and abuses children. They make the politicians look good by comparison.
Anthony, as a former roman catholic, let me remind you of some of the great things the church has done:
1) Innocence III credited for creating propaganda as a political tool.
2) Started the crusades as a means of consolidating the church in Rome.
3) The Spanish Inquisition
4) The Children's Crusade -- read up of this one if you really want to turn your stomach
5) Helping Nazis escape Germany after WWII and flee to South America
6) Raping children while blaming a culture of "secular humanism" for their own warped behavior
7) Protecting pedophiles from prosecution by moving them to new parishes where they could abuse more children
8) Stealing children from women they considered "unfit"
9) Cultural genocide in Latin America (destroying Mayan written history, forcing people to abandon native languages and customs, etc.)
10) Preaching hatred toward people who are different (Jews, atheists, gays, lesbians, bi-sexuals, etc.)
...on the bright side they did apologize for threatened to kill Galileo for daring to say that the earth revolved around the sun ... and it ony took 400 years to do so.
What other organization could get away with having a leader who was a former Nazi?
What other organization could get away with harboring pedophiles?
What other organization could treat women like third class citizens and still be accepted in our PC America?
U wouldn't believe of ALL the shenanigans here, there and through out the WORLD..this is nothing NEW, WE live totally unaware of the deception/ evil ways of mankind......
Before you Catholic bashers make this article completely about the Catholic church, it said that facism, and the Catholic church were 2 examples how it Started. What happened in 1977 to the Vega family had nothing to do with single mothers and the church and was probably for money as were many of the more modern cases, You know human trafficking, black market adoptions, etc. Secondly, in almost every society in the old days and in some still today, being a single unwed inpregnated woman was and is a scandal, and many were/are not Catholic!
Nobody is talking off the top of their head and I don't know what the f you're talking about. While the article says that in the beginning when unwed mothers were (frowned on everywhere), the church was involved it doesn't say it always was and still is. They are a part of a bigger article and story that everyone, once hearing the Catholic church, stopped hearing. Haven't you ever heard of illegal adoptions or the black market? Don't you know about all the shady people and networks in the world that do things for money? Right now human trafficking is really coming into light. Naive much? or just the same biased people who spewing once the Catholic church comes into play.
BOB= Ignoramus Bigot: You have so many Mistakes that it's not even funny. The "propaganda" that Innocent III started is Latin for propagation of the faith, preaching, teaching etc, Not political. The Crusades started because the Byzantine Emperor asked Pope Urban II for help in the vicious onslaught of the Muslim Turks against the Christian Eastern Empire, the harrassing and persecution of Christians they had conquered, Remember? . The "Spanish" Inquisition was started, not by Rome, but by Isabela and Ferdinand of Spain and was under Their control and Rome had No say,; The "Children's Crusade was a spontaneous outburst and not promoted by the Church; The Mayans had fallen as a civilization Before the Spanish got to Mexico, and Franciscan and Dominican missionaries worked with the Indians learning their languages and defending them from the depredations of greedy civilians and soldiers and the Jesuits preserved the Yaquis and others; Pope Pius XII saved some 860,000 Jews from the Nazis in WW II by his secret underground, according to the research of Israeli Pinchus Lapide; It was the Francoists, Not the Church, who did the taking away of the babies and they asked some nuns (from orphanages or hospitals) and Not Priests (can you read?); As for the raping children, that was done by a small minority and the bishops who transferred them were Few, not many; By the way, in Spain in the early 1930s, Communists and other far leftists were destroying churches and killing priests and young seminarians, and the Loyalist government which included them as well as decent republicans and regionalist Catalans could not handle them, so a civil war erupted with military and civilians battling the so-called Loyalists who received help from Stalin, so Hitler and Mussolini jumped in on the other side. Your simpletonian and bigoted view of history is really pitiful. Try to make and effort to be objective, honest, and informed in depth instead of blathering all the hatred and ignorance you have.
@Bob-767984
I can name one for you; the Ku Klux Klan.
Absolute power corrupts absolutly. I hope Mr. Vega discovers the truth.
FPCreator20000, English por favor, mmkay?
Oh callate, baka.
His post wasn't for your benefit.
Google translate - The only thing I can do is daler good luck to Luis Vega and buttonhole to find her son
I think something may be off with the translation....or the Spanish spelling.
Jewels CM....you were real close: daler (not a word I'm familiar with); The only thing I can do is (send? give?..might be misspelled as you pointed out) good luck to Luis Vega and hope that he finds his/their son. Google does give out some strange translations!
It's more being Spanish from Spain.
The only thing I can do is give good luck to Luis Vega and I am hopeful that he meets his son. (believe hojala is either a mispelling or a regionally different spelling of ojala - hopeful)
Nice to pull out the Spanish minor once in a while.... :)
It's misspelled, it should be "darle" and "ojala".
dude, wish the best of luck on this.
SEMPER FI
DANNY P
I can't imagine anything more devastating than to be told your child died at birth. To find out years later that he/she might actually be alive would be a miracle, but I would be very angry at the person who perpetrated the lie. I hope those families who lost their children will at last be able to find out what truly happened and find some sense of closure.
As sad as this is, don't forget that this also happened here in the United States. I know this because I am a black market baby! I think these goverments and institutions should be help liable and that there should be no statute of limitations on these crimes.
There should also be a record of all adoptions that took place during this time period...like at a censes record building that one could focus in one...these kind of stories are very sensitive...I was married to a guy who was adopted and always wondered about his real father but in the end chose not to go looking for him physically although he knew of his bio-father's proximate location...I'm sure many of these adult "abducted babies" have by now been told that they were adopted or are finding out as the world progresses toward every human being being documented for identity reasons and having to get birth records, passports, homeland security document, etc (whatever they have in each countries)...questions are going to be raised.
I hope these poor people find out the truth. Most likely though, they will never see their missing child.
keep the faith.
G
do not undergo any type of anesthetic! Make sure some one you know and trust is right there in the delivery room with you. What a horror!
That authority will be at your door if we're not careful. Vote wisely. OBAMA 2012.
Thank you all for the translation. We wish their search will be very fruitful.
More than likely she had a c-section if anesthetic was used, plus she was having twins. A c-section is very common when having multiple babies. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to have a c-section without any kind of anesthesia...
Things were very different back then. Like the article said, the doctors were seen as a voice of authority not to question. The doctor may have told him the child was a gruesome sight and he may have believed it.
Yeah and I hate these people who are so anti religion that they make the whole thing about that, as this never would happen worldwide without it.
Analystgirl----What?? What if she had a C-section? I don't recommend no anesthesia with major surgery...as a matter of fact I don't know if they would allow such a thing. You obviously have never had surgery. I do agree that there should be someone else present but back then they did not allow someone else in the room unless it was a DR. or nurse.
How much lower than that can human race go?
ashes and dirt we ae getting close
This is horrible that the babies are being stolen right after birth. How devastating would that be if you found out the child went missing.
:'(
The Doctors that participated in this theft should be hung!
That would be too easy. Life in prison - semi-isolation, no communication, meager rations. Confiscation of all assets. Death brings release - imprisonment is loss of all freedoms, all.
alwaysanother, you are viciously anti catholic which obviously was well b4 this article.
What a horror!!! I truly hope that the Vega family finds their son. What worries me is that these children may not have accurate knowledge of their birthdate. These dates could be skewed by days, weeks even a month or two. How would the child know???
The children may even be living in other countries. It would have been nice if they had included a picture of the twin with the article, so that people reading this across the globe could have seen her and notified the twin brother, who would look very much like her, that they are looking for him.
Excellent points, H-i-M. Maybe your post will get noticed and a pix provided. Hope so.
Hot-in-Miami: Fraternal twins, unlike identical twins, do not look alike any more than siblings born at different times. Fraternal twins can be two boys or two gitls; but boy/girl twins are ALWAYS fraternal.
That's true, Matilda but I think it's worth a shot. Photos should of the family should have been provided in the article. From then and from today.
And are the doctors being charged? Nice, huh? Doctors helping to steal humans.
You won't let anyone say anything about anyone else involved alwaysanother will you. Do you know doctors steal kidneys in India?
Hey nirvanalovemonkey,Read the article"Doctors,often with the help of NUNS,"would tell single mothers their child was dead,or force them to give up the child for adoption"
Research what the Catholic Church did to disgraced or single mothers in Ireland.
The truth about what the catholic church has done in Ireland is just starting to come out. The pattern of pedophilia and abuse is beyond belief. When will any of the clergy ever be charged with these crimes?
The Dutch are getting into the act,too. Something unbelievable, 10,000 to 20,000 cases of abuse. For decades. That's what happens when people are not educated. If you remember, only the elite could afford schooling. The rest of the populace made do with local, low level school if they were lucky.
That's what happens in a country when people leave the workings of the government to others instead of doing their own homework. Ever watchful, always double check.
Isn't it interesting that some of the most liberal parts of the world are having some of the most despicable crimes done in them...America is getting there at a rapid rate.
Wow. Truly awful. I hope each family involved finds some sort of closure.
Also, if the doctor is still alive, and this can be proven, he needs to go to jail!
it happen to to us too, but the spaniar family was here in USA,they think that by taking the baby away and making her believe the baby dead ,because she hear the cried,they even told her she was crazy to think about it.they when as far as setting her for rape in 1951 a daughter was born 1952 and 4 years later they tried to murder the little girl by raping her and shoting her 3 time and then dumping her body down the cliff.my side of the family are still ,i cannot write it on facebook.iam not surprise.
Paula: So very sorry, very sorry. There is much cruelty in this world. All we can do is help those in need, using caution.
You want Justice in this Case?If any of these bastards that call themselves doctors are still alive, take them out and Shoot Them.
Justice is Severed!
Nothing has been said about the hundreds of children that were abducted by the Russians, and sent to Russia during the Spanish Civil war. I have 2 cousins who dissapered during the war. Other family members have told me (Years ago) that they were taken. But try and prove it.
OK, I will agree that the abuses of Hitler and Stalin are as bad as those of the catholic church.
Maybe they are in the Matrix.
The Protestants used to do the same thing in New York and send babies of single mothers from New York to the Mid West in the 1930's and 40's
nirvanalovemonkey
Either you were born on another planet or you do not have a clue of Spanish history and all that went on under the rule of Franco who was a fascist criminal that was supported by the Catholic Church during the entire time of his death grip on Spain. There is also the history of the Catholic Church in Spain and its many excesses from the persecution of the Jews and other ethnic groups it found undesirable to its support of the Franco regime. I strongly suggest that you bone up on your Spanish history and that of the Catholic Church in Spain before coming off with the clueless routine because it is obvious that you do not know a fraction of what has gone on in Spain under the watchful eye of the fascist or the Catholic Church that were both corrupt entities for many years.
alwaysanother,
What's your beef with the Catholic Church? You come across as a very angry individual and I'm sure you have your reasons, but please try to find peace.
I'm sure that many of these individuals referenced in the story (i.e. Nuns working in the hospitals and orphanges) thought they were doing the right thing - remember in that time period it was scandalous to be a single mother. Now, to us, these stories seem unbelievable and we accept them as wrong. But I sincerely doubt there was any kind of mass conspiracy.
As for the Roman Church sending priests over to the new world - these priests were sent as missionaries. It certainly doesn't pay to kill those you are trying to convert - does it?
You might also want to look at other countries that were 'civilized' into Catholicism and their methods. Mexico, for instance. Now blaming the Catholic church only isn't right, bring in the Methodists, Baptists, all the other christian religions, the Evangelicals and their right wing radical cousins. All in the name of God.
I want to go on ...
1) Innocence III credited for creating propaganda as a political tool.
2) Started the crusades as a means of consolidating the church in Rome.
3) The Spanish Inquisition
4) The Children's Crusade -- read up of this one if you really want to turn your stomach
5) Helping Nazis escape Germany after WWII and flee to South America
6) Raping children while blaming a culture of "secular humanism" for their own warped behavior
7) Protecting pedophiles from prosecution by moving them to new parishes where they could abuse more children
8) Stealing children from women they considered "unfit"
9) Cultural genocide in Latin America (destroying Mayan written history, forcing people to abandon native languages and customs, etc.)
10) Preaching hatred toward people who are different (Jews, atheists, gays, lesbians, bi-sexuals, etc.)
...on the bright side they did apologize for threatened to kill Galileo for daring to say that the earth revolved around the sun ... and it ony took 400 years to do so.
What other organization could get away with having a leader who was a former Nazi?
What other organization could get away with harboring pedophiles?
What other organization could treat women like third class citizens and still be accepted in our PC America?
alwaysanother, are you saying what happened to this Family(not single mother), the Vegas, in 1977(not 1940) were still the act of nuns?
What some subhumans will do in the name of GOD. They will be punished.
The catholic church was not created by God...it is a human invention. Never underestimate the depravity of "man".
They are being punished now; it's not they will be. They are miserable in their self righteousness. They claim they are doing God's work. I'd call that blasphemy of the highest order to take upon one's self the role of a god. Jesus's message is a good one, Love They Neighbor; it's His followers we should fear.
gods don't kill people
people with gods kill people
I don't care if you claim you're King of England...if you say my child is dead I want to see the body for myself.
always, what the hell are you talking about?
That government has been corrupt for a hundred years, why do you think the Basques want out. Franco with his murder and corruption is receiving his eternal reward for his evil ways, and if those baby's were stolen they will get there punishment too. I am a son of one of the "children of Spain". Look that up in your history books.
What government is not corrupt... get real here... read about Russia lately... assassination of a journalist that is fighting government corruption - who do you think ordered that murder... Putin...
Watch the movie "Salt"... country's secret services have been doing this to kidnapped children for centuries... brainwashing and controling their adult thoughts...
Nirvanalovemonkey, you really are dense. Nothing, and I mean nothing evaded the knowledge of the Catholic Church in Spain during that time. You could not baptize a baby with out the priest knowing were it came from, and the church was the repository for unwed mothers, who had their kids pried from their hands in many cases.
In 1943 my parents were informed that the child my mother was pregnant with was stillborn and that the hospital would handle all the arrangements for burial. It too was a Catholic hospital as well as the cemetary where the infant was suppose to been buried. I was told of this many, many years later as a young adult and it saddened me that I would never have had an older brother. After I returned home from being overseas in the service something made me want to visit this gravesite. I approached the cemetary and they had no record of any burial for this infant. I could never mention this to my parents because it would have been too much for them to bear. Reading this story I wonder if doctors here in this country would do such a thing to people as well. I am saddened that these people may have had children ripped away from them for no other reason than someone greedy and wanting to make money selling babies. This is disgusting.
This happened to my mom too in 1943. She was a very young girl, my dad was overseas in the war, they told her my brother had got sick and died (he was healthy when born, she saw him). In the 90's I contacted the hospital for records of his death and they told me both mother and baby were discharged healthy. The cemetary says no one is buried under his headstone, and the state of PA vital statistics have no record of his death. I do not know where to look now, and both parents have passed. I believe he was stolen.
This is so horrible.