My Story
Why I'm Writing This
I was born on October 14, 1985, in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. My mother's name was Ina. My father's name was Artyom. I have no memories of them—only the knowledge that they existed, and that they were taken from me.
What followed were fourteen years that the German state would later describe, in clinical language, as “multiple acts of violence resulting in health damage.” A disability rating of 90 out of 100. Post-traumatic stress disorder with lasting personality changes following extreme trauma. Dissociative disorder. Panic disorder. Recurrent depressive disorder.
Letters and numbers for something that has no language.
I'm forty years old now. I live in Pilsen, Czech Republic. Not in the country where it happened. Most of what I have, I fought for alone. My life is shaped by anxiety, panic attacks, and withdrawal from the world. But I'm alive. I survived.
This blog is my attempt to tell the story I was never allowed to tell. Not for money. Not for attention. Not for pity.
I'm writing this because these things happened. Because they happened to me, and to others. Because silence protects the people who did this, not the people who survived it.
I will write this in pieces, as I'm able. Some parts will be harder than others. Some details I may never share. That's okay. This is my story, and I get to decide how it's told.
If you're reading this because you survived something similar: you're not alone. I see you.
If you're reading this to understand: thank you for listening.
Content warning: This blog will discuss child abuse, trafficking, violence, and trauma. I will not include graphic details for their own sake, but the subject matter is inherently difficult. Please take care of yourself while reading.
Part 1: Before
I was born in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on October 14, 1985. My mother was Ina. My father was Artyom.
That's all I know about them. I have no memories of their faces, their voices, the way they held me. Only the fact that they existed, and that someone took me from them.
Somewhere in those early months or years, a man appeared. A German man. He would control my life for the next fourteen years.
Years later, I found slides from his trip to Russia. The trip where he took me. Kidnapped me. Brought me to a place where no one would look for a child who didn't officially exist.
My parents—Ina and Artyom—were killed. I don't know when. I don't know how. I only know they're gone, and that he made sure of it.
Part 2: The Building Near Gdańsk
Before Germany, there was Poland.
A building near Gdańsk. What happened there has marked my life to this day.
It was a place where men gathered. Men who paid. For things that have no acceptable name.
Children were brought there. “Processed”—a word I can barely say without everything inside me contracting.
One of those children was Andy Jörns. He was my age. His father was the man who had kidnapped me. His mother was Simona—a woman I would consider my stepmother for many years.
Andy was supposed to disappear. Money changed hands for this. And I was supposed to take his place. His identity. His name. His life.
That's how I became Andy Jörns. The child from Rostov ceased to exist on paper.
My first conscious memory is not one any child should have.
I was locked in a room for a week. With Andy. With the boy whose life I was meant to assume. Except Andy was no longer alive.
A week with a dead child my own age. That's where my conscious existence begins.
Part 3: Rakow (1986)
After Poland, they brought me to East Germany. The DDR. To a small place called Rakow, where Simona and he lived.
I was about two years old. Too young to understand what had happened. But not too young to remember.
The body remembers what the mind cannot yet process.
The abuse started immediately. Daily. Along with torture. Being locked away. Simona wasn't a mother—she was a victim herself, beaten regularly, too focused on her own survival to protect me.
The house that was supposed to be my home was a prison. The people who were supposed to be my family were my tormentors.
Nothing about this life was mine. But I was too small to understand that. And too broken to fight back.
Part 4: Rostock-Groß Klein (1987)
In 1987, we moved to Rostock. A ground-floor apartment in Groß Klein.
There, he had a Bernese Mountain Dog. That dog tried to protect me—the only living being in that household who did.
But even that was taken from me. When the dog positioned itself between me and him, he killed it. In cold blood. In front of me.
And like everything else, it was my fault.
The man's name was Hermann. In Rostock, he opened a youth club. To the outside world, he was the savior who cared for children. Politically active—first in the SED, later in the SPD. Respected. Admired.
Behind closed doors: explosive, brutal, uncontrolled. He tortured and beat me everywhere—in the apartment, on the street, in the youth club itself. No matter what I did, it was wrong. No matter what happened, it was my fault.
The apartment had a hidden space between walls. A bed in the darkness. That's where he locked me. I remember the spiders. The darkness. The waiting.
As came out in the 2004 trial, there were thirteen children in the end. Many from the youth club.
Thirteen children.
Hermann received three years. He served eighteen months in JVA Bützow prison. Because of his age. Because he confessed.
Part 5: Poland, Again (1987/88)
Another train ride to Poland. Back to the building. Two weeks.
He had friends there whose children he didn't touch. But me, he sold. To men from all over the world. Languages I didn't understand. Money changing hands.
One of the men who had paid for me was beaten to death in front of me. By Hermann. Because something wasn't right—the money wasn't enough, some dispute. The man died on top of me.
And he blamed me for it.
As punishment, he tore out my fingernails.
To this day, I cut my nails far too short every single day. The body doesn't forget. Even when the mind tries to look away.
To be continued...
Note: I'm taking a pause here. This is enough for now. The story continues through 1998, but I need time before writing more.
If you're reading this and it's affecting you: please take care of yourself.
📧 pyo@netunicorn.org