"I've seen girls naked, strapped to chairs and whipped," said one woman who was removed to the Cootamundra Girls' Home in the 1940s.
"They took us around to a room and shaved our hair off...They gave you your clothes and stamped a number on them…They never called you by your name; they called you by your number. That number was stamped on everything," said a man removed to Kinchela Boys' Home in the 1960s.
"I remember once having a bath with my clothes on 'cause I was too scared to take them off. I was scared of the dark 'cause my foster father would often come at night," said a woman removed at three years of age in 1946. She went on to two foster placements and then a number of institutional placements.
These first-hand accounts are distressing, many sickening to the stomach, but they keep coming. They are some of the many testimonies that were given to the 1997 National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.
They were not the only source of evidence for what has become a devastating indictment of Australian public policy and a tragedy for Indigenous Australians.
Here is one from the former Western Australian Chief Protector A.O. Neville, who described the sort of treatments meted out by his staff at the Moore River Settlement in his 1947 book.
"One superintendent I had, because he suspected him of some moral lapse, tarred and feathered a native and he did the job thoroughly, calling the staff to see the rare bird he had captured...Another manager I did appoint, an ex-missionary and a good man too, I had to dismiss for chaining girls to table legs."
The Bringing Them Home (BTH) report, from which these testimonies were taken, was compiled from the 1997 inquiry and released in 1999. It reveals the extent of forced removal policies that went on for more that 150 years and, some would argue, continue today.
One of the 54 recommendations from that report was that a National Sorry Day be recognised on May 26.
A National Sorry Day Committee (NSDC) was set up to ensure that the day remained an acknowledgment of the history of forced removals of Australia's Indigenous population and its effects. The Committee was also given a mandate to see that the other 53 recommendations were fulfilled.
The Australian Government's historic apology to the Stolen Generation, to be read by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in the first sitting of the Australian Parliament for 2008 and the first for the new Labor
Government, is a culmination of the work of the NSDC and many other groups to see the apology recommendation fulfilled.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has spent the last few weeks meeting with Indigenous elders to nut out the wording for what he has described as a "blight on Australia's soul".
Thousands of non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians will be in Canberra to witness the historic occasion, including, Indigenous leaders, business leaders and former prime ministers.
Over 100 selected members of the stolen generation have been flown to Canberra from remote regions around Australia, compliments of the Commonwealth Government and a number of social justice groups.
"I've waited about 60 years for it, so it's a great day. I'm very happy about it," Indigenous elder Keith Kitchener told the ABC after arriving in the capital from Western Australia's Kimberley region. "It's like a brand new day for me."
In order to involve as many Australians as possible, large screens have been set up on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra and in the CBD of Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart. Mr Rudd's speech will be transmitted live on ABC television and radio.
The apology will not include reference to compensation, which was strongly recommended in the BTH report, but it will be an important symbolic gesture for Aboriginal people, says Barry Malezer, Co-Chair of Reconciliation Queensland Inc.
"The Government is showing signs of wanting to fix something that they think is wrong, so I think that is good," he told The Epoch Times.
"It's no good just leaving it hidden or ignoring it or refusing to apologise; that will only cause more antagonism, more hurt and probably more likelihood of the same thing happening."
The Stolen Generation came about in the 1930s through commonwealth and state agreements on "absorption policies", designed to assimilate Aboriginal people into the white European system.
Aboriginality was denounced and Indigenous children across Australia were taken from their mothers, often at birth. Most were denied any future connection with their Indigenous families.
Link-Up associations have now been formed in each state to help in the painstaking search for lost families. For some, there has been success; for many others, the search goes on.
Mr Malezer said there are some positive stories to come out of the Stolen Generation years and acknowledged that many of the welfare agencies were well-meaning, but the agenda behind it was fundamentally flawed in its "assimilationist" and "racist" foundations.
"It was about saying there is no value in Aboriginal culture," he said. Worse still, many of the institutions and foster families that were supposed to improve the quality of life for Indigenous children were at best dysfunctional and at worst, horrific.
According to the BTH report: "Almost a quarter (23.4 per cent) of witnesses to the Inquiry, who were fostered or adopted, reported being assaulted there. One in six children who were institutionalised reported physical assault and punishments.
"Sexual abuse was reported to the Inquiry by 1 in 5 people who were fostered and 1 in 10 people who were institutionalised. One in 10 alleged they were sexually abused in a work placement organised by the Protection Board or institution."
While these figures and the many testimonies alone are enough to wonder why it has taken so long for an Australian Government to apologise, one of the most disturbing aspects of the report's findings was how deeply the "stolen" years had affected Australia's Indigenous population.
"Not one Aboriginal family had escaped the effects of the forced removal policies," the report said.
Mr Malezer, whose Indigenous background has exposed him both personally and professionally to the ramifications of the Stolen Generation years, says there is a Stolen Generation story lying just below the surface of most Indigenous Australians. Bringing those stories to the surface he believes, will not be pretty, but it is an important part of the healing process and one of the positives to come out of the Government apology.
"All those people, when they start bringing it all up and talking about it, and talking about what sort of apology, it is going to get very emotional, but that's the healing process. You have to go back to the hurt and then comes the healing."
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