NEW YORK (AP) — For decades, Jackie Young had been searching.

Orphaned as an infant, he spent the first few years of his life in a Nazi internment camp in what is now the Czech Republic. After World War II he was taken to England, adopted and given a new name.

As an adult, he struggled to learn of his origins and his family. He had some scant information about his birth mother, who died in a concentration camp. But about his father? Nothing. Just a blank space on a birth certificate.

That changed earlier this year when genealogists used a DNA sample to help find a name — and some relatives he never knew he had.

Having that answer to a lifelong question has been “amazing,” said Young, now 80 and living in London. It “opened the door that I thought would never get opened.”

CUTTING THE LINE–A ROMANIAN JOURNALIST’S STORY OF LOVE, SURVIVAL, AND IMMIGRATION offers unique insight into the female immigrant experience in America: the small cruelties, the unexpected kindnesses, the many obstacles, and the occasional victories. From big-city Romania to small-town New England, this memoir explores what it means to leave the life you know behind—and what it takes to create a new one in the face of overwhelming odds.

Before I moved to the United States, I was well on my way to an illustrious career in journalism in Romania. At thirty-three, I had a published book, a TV show, and a number of investigative print pieces to my name, and my star was still rising. Then I met Lyman Dezotell in Romania— an American man with a wide smile and a huge heart, the sole father of five girls. He came to visit Romania, but I gave up everything to marry him and move to America.

In Bucharest, I was a successful career woman with my own apartment and a tight circle of loved ones; in Coventry, Vermont, I was disconnected, with a limited grasp of English and only Lyman to lean on. Then, just months after the move, Lyman died in a freak accident on his way to work, leaving me penniless and pregnant with our child. With a plane ticket in my pocket, and the unexpected tragedy, I had to make a choice: leave the country or stay and find a way to survive on my own.

I am a former writer for the newspaper the National Daily in Bucharest, Romania. I am recognized as one of the country’s best post-revolution reporters; some of my press campaigns are now taught in courses at the University of Journalism in Romania. In 2001 I moved to Vermont, where I worked as a science teacher (the 2014 Vermont Outstanding Science Teacher of the Year) and am the co-editor of a Romanian language magazine, New York Magazin.

“Dana Dezotell’s memoir Pasiflora drops you into a world you will never forget, from a magical childhood in Romania to a love story that unfolds in America.”

NEWPORT CITY -- Attorney Duncan Kilmartin settled a legal malpractice and consumer fraud complaint brought against him by the widow he represented in a wrongful death lawsuit.

Neither Kilmartin nor his attorney Andrew Maass was present at a hearing in Orleans Superior Court-Civil Division Wednesday, but Andrew Manitsky, who represents the estate of Lyman Dezotell Jr., said the parties negotiated a settlement through mediation.

Manitsky said he was not at liberty to disclose the amount of money nor the terms of the settlement. "I can tell you we're satisfied with the settlement," Manitsky said.

Kilmartin and Maass did not return phone calls for this story.

Widow Maria Dezotell's counterclaim came on the heels of a civil action filed by law firm Rexford & Kilmartin in an attempt to collect Kilmartin's fees.

CARA organises 200 special Social media campaigns, 10 State Orientation Programmes, and Interactive meets with more than 700 Prospective Adoptive Parents and Adoptive Parents

Celebrates ‘Adoption Awareness Month' in November, 2022

Posted On: 01 DEC 2022 7:48PM by PIB Delhi

As part of the ‘Adoption Awareness Month' , Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) organised 10 State orientation programmes, ran 200 special social media campaigns, held interactive meets with more than 700 Prospective Adoptive Parents and Adoptive Parents in November ,2022. The key features of the new Adoption Regulations, 2022 notified by the Central Government on September 23, 2022 were also shared with them. CARA engaged with the adoption community by offering in-depth knowledge and resources for families.

Adoption Awareness Month was celebrated in the States of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Daman & Diu, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

News and comment from the 14th European Forum on the rights of the child in Brussels

The 14th European Forum on the rights of the child took place between the 27th and the 29th September 2022 in Brussels. Hope and Homes for Children was among the few organisations invited to attend in person. The forum covered topics crucial for our work such as

child participation

children in armed conflict

and addressed important EU policies, including

Dutch nun (89) accused of baby robbery: she told mothers that their child was stillborn.

CHILI

An 89-year-old Dutch nun is accused of baby theft and illegal adoption from Chile. In the 1970s and 1980s, she would have taken children without permission from the mothers for adoption in the Netherlands. Some Chilean adoptees and mothers have filed a report in recent years.

September 1979. An underage mother is admitted to the hospital in Paillaco, southern Chile, with her newborn son. She gave birth at home but lost a lot of blood. When the mother wants to breastfeed the next day, a Dutch nun and a Chilean social worker tell her that her baby has died. She can't see him anymore, his little body is already gone.

The 'deceased' baby ? Alejandro Quezada ? is, in fact, very much alive. He is now 43 years old and lives near Amsterdam. “My mother hated that she wasn't even allowed to take me to say goodbye. Because she started screaming, they drugged her. She came to three days later."

After her adoption at the age of 2.5, Sam (40, but according to the law 41 years old) ended up in an unsafe family situation in the Netherlands. She was abused by her adoptive father and felt little warmth with her adoptive mother. She also found out that her adoption papers had been tampered with. 'I was just sold.'

Second choice

“I don't remember much of my first two years of life. I was born in Sri Lanka in 1981 and was adopted in 1984 by my Dutch adoptive parents. According to them, my biological mother had given me up because she could no longer take care of me. My adoptive parents also told me that they would actually adopt another girl from Indonesia,” says Sam in Grazia's Winterboek . “They had everything ready for her and suddenly that adoption was cancelled. Finally they came to me. To me, that always felt like I was second choice. And to be honest, I've never really felt comfortable at home.”

“Even at school I didn't feel at home. Because I got all the clothes from my adoptive brothers and my adoptive mother cut my hair short, I looked like a boy. I was bullied a lot about that. Meanwhile, I was abused by my adoptive father from the age of six. This developed very gradually.”

biological family

FORT BENNING, Ga. (June 6, 2012) -- Editor's note: In the Feb. 29 edition, The Bayonet featured an article on the Harts, a military Family adopting two children from India. This article is an update on their story and introduces three other Families, also adopting from India.

Of the 31 million orphans* in India, six will soon be coming home to the Chattahoochee Valley. The four Families adopting them -- three active duty and one former military -- have followed different paths to reach this decision and now they're months away from meeting their children for the first time. This is their story.

The Harts

Like many military Families, the Harts live on two continents. Although it's not yet official, and their daughters are still in India, Aimee Hart said she feels like the two sisters, ages 3 and 4, are already part of the Family.

"We are all in," she said. "To us, they're ours."

SP Member of Parliament Michiel van Nispen has tabled a motion in which he calls on Minister Franc Weerwind (Legal Protection) to refrain from appealing in the case of the illegal adoption of Patrick Noordoven and the adoption of Dilani Butink. Van Nispen also filed a motion to reimburse costs incurred by the adoptees as a result of the State's decision to continue litigation.

Van Nispen previously addressed the minister in response to an episode of Het Onderzoeksbureau . In it, children's and human rights organizations also called for the appeal to be withdrawn. In the WNL podcast, Noordoven tells how he won his lawsuit against the State at the end of 2021, which then decided to appeal.

Patrick was taken from Brazil in 1980 with the help of a Dutch diplomat by a Dutch couple. Because his legal parents had registered him as their own child, information about his biological parents was missing. Patrick, like 41 other children, turned out to be illegally adopted from Brazil. Dutch diplomats were also involved in those adoptions.

Butink was adopted from Sri Lanka in 1992 and could not find out who her biological parents are due to abuses. It is not the first time that the State has challenged a judge's verdict: the same thing happened in the case of Patrick Noordoven in February 2022.

Stress and high costs

Vanessa Emerson and Jonessa Dobbs were put up for adoption shortly after their birth in 1985. Years later, they learned they had a triplet.

INDIANAPOLIS — Vanessa Emerson and Jonessa Dobbs were born in South Korea in 1985 and put up for adoption shortly after.

"What we believe is our parents were young, unmarried and in Korea, especially at that time, you don’t have kids when you’re unmarried," said Dobbs. "That’s just a no-no, so a lot of moms end up giving their kids up for adoption."

They were taken in by a family in Michigan and the two grew up just outside Detroit.

"We always knew we were adopted," said Dobbs.