ELLEN MARIE WISEMAN’S, “THE LOST GIRLS OF WILLOWBROOK.”

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Ellen Marie Wiseman’s “The Lost Girls of Willowbrook,” is a fascinating, horrific, somewhat fictionalized account of the massive abuse suffered by the disabled, mentally challenged residents who lived in the Willowbrook State School by many of the workers, doctors, and administrators. In 1972, Geraldo Rivera, brought a film crew into House Six of the Willowbrook campus and exposed the inhumane conditions the residents were living under. That was the start of major reforms introduced into the state institutions in New York State. Willowbrook finally closed down in 1987.

I have read numerous books on the holocaust, The Russian and Chinese Gulags, the colonization of the African continent by the Europeans, the slave trade, and the torturous conditions inside state institutions like Willowbrook. It usually takes me a day or two to fully recover from reading these accounts and to, once again, find hope in the human race.

I am always reminded of a quote attributed to many people, “All it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.”

Published by josephfsciuto

Joseph Sciuto was born and raised in New York City, where he spent his early years listening to his Italian-American grandmother’s vivid stories about how their family was responsible for building much of the impressive Manhattan skyline, including the Empire State Building. The rich flavor of her stories about their family’s heritage still works its way through his writing. Sciuto holds degrees from both John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Stony Brook University and a certificate in film studies from New York University. After studying psychology, film, theater, literature, and English as an undergraduate, he relocated to Southern California to attend graduate school at Loyola Marymount University, where he studied writing and film. Sciuto's next novel, SOFIA, is available on June 27, 2019, following the success of HOLLYWOOD RIPTIDE, TARGETED DEMOGRAPHICS and PER VERSE VENGEANCE.

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