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The yellow house and the doctor who experimented on me

Evy Mages uncovers the shocking truth behind the injections she received as a young girl at the hands of a controversial Austrian psychologist.

Evy Mages grew up in and out of foster care in 1970s and 80s Austria. But even when she started a new life in the US, she was haunted by traumatic memories of a strange yellow house high up in the Alps, where she had been placed as an eight-year-old. It took an idle internet search in her 50s to reveal that this was actually an institution called a 'Kinderbeobachtungsstation', or 'child-observation station', where vulnerable children were experimented on by a psychologist using shocking methods. She decided to step back into her past to uncover the full, disturbing truth of what happened there.

Evy's story first appeared in the New Yorker in 2023.

Presenter: India Rakusen
Producer: Edgar Maddicott
Editor: Rebecca Vincent

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707

(Photo: Evy Mages. Credit: Sammy Schwartzman)

Available now

41 minutes

Broadcasts

  • Thu 11 Apr 2024 11:06GMT
  • Thu 11 Apr 2024 17:06GMT
  • Thu 11 Apr 2024 21:06GMT
  • Fri 12 Apr 2024 02:06GMT

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