As a teenager, Cees Morsch from Heiloo was abused for four years by a brother of the Sint-Willibrord Foundation. For sixty years he wouldn’t talk about it until he thought it was enough. He wrote down his story in the book ‘Misexploited’. We went back with Cees to the place where he was sexually abused.
Goosebumps all over his body. Cees Morsch feels that when he talks about the misery he experienced as a ten-year-old boy at the Willibrordus Foundation. “It is an automatic reaction, it has been too drastic. After sixty years, that emotion still surfaces. I can’t help it. It is very deep.”
We are back at the place where Cees used to be a child, the Willibrordus Foundation in Heiloo. The Brothers of Our Lady of Lourdes held sway over the psychiatric institution. “My father worked here as a tailor and my uncles also worked here at the foundation. So we sometimes came here to swim or watch football.”
Dark room
It was therefore not surprising that Brother Arimathea, who worked as a photographer at the foundation, sometimes visited the family to take pictures of the children. “When I was about 10 years old he asked if I didn’t like to see how photos were developed. I really liked that. He took me to the dark camera and that’s where it all started.”
According to Cees, it started innocently enough with a pat on the head and the question whether he wanted to sit on his lap to take a closer look at the photo album. “In the beginning I didn’t realize much, but it went from bad to worse. You are tricked into it in a playful way. You don’t dare say no to such a brother.”
We went back to the Willibrordus Foundation with Cees and talked about his book, view the images below (text continues below the video)
Cees (73) was abused as a child by a brother and writes a book: “It feels like a liberation” – NH News
The abuse eventually lasted more than four years. It stopped when brother Arimathea, in the presence of Cees, had a cardiac arrest. “He died while masturbating, literally at a peak,” says Cees, showing a photo of his tombstone. “I ran into the hallway and the other brothers immediately saw what was going on. He was lying there with his cock out of his habit.”
Secret
Cees carried the secret with him for decades. “I couldn’t tell, my father had certainly stood up for me, but he had lost his job.” Even later he never told his parents. “Now that key people involved, including my parents, are no longer alive, I thought it was time to tell my story.”
In his struggle for recognition, he sometimes traveled to Belgium to report to the order that had founded the Willibrordus Foundation at the time. He entered a room where other victims were crying. “They then offered five thousand euros in compensation. An alms, just laughable. I didn’t want to know anything about it. Then they asked how much I wanted, absolutely no empathy for all the suffering that was done to me.”
Other human
For years, Cees suffered both mentally and physically from the abuse he experienced as a child. “It feels like a liberation. I’ve always had problems with sexuality and with my body. When I started writing that went away. Writing the book also solved a lot. It made me a different person.”
The book will be presented on March 10 at 2 p.m. in the ‘Story Room’ on the Willibrordus estate.
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