As a baby, Wilko Vermuë was given up for adoption. He was born in Mother Heil in Breda, a transition home for unmarried pregnant women. That was a shame at the time. In his entire life, he met his mother only once. And on the spot where the Mother Heil building used to be, Wilko now plays in a play: “This is an opportunity I will never get again.”
Being in Breda is special for Wilko: “I am always attracted to this city.” He was born there, but did not grow up there: he was adopted by a family from Borssele. Wilko is in the park that once belonged to Mother Heil. The building itself is no longer there, it was demolished in the 1990s. There is now an apartment complex.
Wilko was born in Mother Heil in 1968. His mother camped with friends at a campsite in Cadzand nine months earlier. There she got pregnant. Unmarried: a mortal sin at the time. So she gave up her son after birth.
“I have a trauma that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.”
It was a different time, so Wilko finds it difficult to judge this: “I would not have liked to be in her shoes. But that does not alter the fact that as an adoptee I also have childhood trauma that I carry with me all my life.” This is caused by the fact that Wilko really does not know anyone from his biological family. “The fact that as a mother and child you are immediately separated is I very unnatural.”
Once, in 2006, Wilko met his biological mother. They talked for three hours. But after that she wanted nothing more to do with him. “I was not accepted for a second time,” he says. She even forbade him to contact his half brother and sister. “In programs such as Spoorloos, you see reunions where mothers are very happy to embrace their child. That is confronting for me to see.”
Participating in the play Mother’s Child, in the place where he was born, is therefore important to him. Although it is way out of his comfort zone, Wilko admits. “To clarify what happened and what it does to us, adoptive children and distance mothers.”
Director Anouk van den Berg notices that it is very difficult for all actors to participate in the play Mother’s Child: “This history has been erased. There is also no memorial sign. If you walk here, you will not see anywhere that a transit house has stood here. Only this park is left. I can tell from the players that they want to pay tribute to this place. But it is also very fraught for them.”
“I try to give it a place so it doesn’t rule my life.”
Wilko was never able to put what happened in Mother Salvation behind him. He is still looking for his biological father. “I sometimes hear the question in my environment: when will you stop doing that? But this will always be a part of me. I try to give it a place so it doesn’t rule my life. Between 15 and 25,000 children have been given up for adoption. In this play I want to show this history. Because this should never have happened.”
Mother’s Child can be seen from May 27 to June 12. More information find you here†
ALSO READ: Eugénie was born in a clinic for unmarried mothers and had no baby photo
