Three identical strangers

[MyGastIsFlabbered]

Anyone watching? Shocking that this was done deliberately for a study, the results of which will never be made public. Heartbreaking.

DH and I referred to Mengele too. DH called the experiment early in the documentary, when they mentioned that they had been placed in a working class, middle class and affluent families

I read the triplets story a while ago and was stunned but nothing could prepare you for the reality of seeing them in the flesh discussing this and it’s terrible impact. A very well made documentary.

She gave me the bloody shivers that woman.

I suspect that with these three boys, they selected the families to have three different socio-economic groups to filter their results on - one was down to earth descended from immigrants, middle class and the other one pretty well off.

Is Neubauer still alive?

So morally and ethically wrong, and to place these three lads within what was it, 100 miles of each other? If you're going to commit that cruelty, at least move them so far away that the chances of meeting are incredibly slim. Utterly arrogant and reckless.

I do wonder what, if anything, happened that the research was never published or if it was just the coming together of these triplets and it became just too much of a hot potato (as the cessation of the program seemed to coincide with when that hit the press).

I wonder how much money changed hands with that adoption agency for the benefit of them manipulating their adoptions for this purpose...

It was so shocking that those people talked so callously about the experiment on young children and their new families. And they all minimised, too.

I wonder if there are any other suicides that they really rather weren’t reported .

The arrogance of the ‘professionals’ was gobsmacking. They didnt give a shit. And the fact that they were experimenting on humans in a callous manner (albeit not as horrific) as Mengele (who also studied twins) was particularly shocking considering their own origins. Also shocking was when the surviving triplets realised that their sisters were part of the lab test too.

When I studied psychology (years ago) twins studies were often cited but we never through to query the origins of the children or how the studies came about.

I haven't watched this yet but read the story in the Times a few months ago. There is also a You tube film showing twin sisters adopted through the same agency meeting.

I couldn’t quite catch one thing that the twin women said - very early on on the interview they just looked at each other and said something. I found the letter written to one of them about their mums mental health issues utterly heartless and shockingly cold.

@DointItForTheKids I'll bet that the research company paid a heck of a lot to the adoption agency. So shocking. Some people would have gained massively at the expense of children and their mental health.
So sad to think of these babies naming their heads off their cots and how they must of been missing their siblings.
You just think of they had been adopted together into a happy family how different their lives would have been.

To have delegated them at six months though - dear god what a wrench for those poor babies. I was rooting for Daves dad - he would have been a wonderful dad to those three.

I did wonder about - was it Eddie who killed himself? - the dad of Eddie. They seemed to paint him as a possible source of the ‘extra piece of the puzzle’ That contributed to the suicide. I think he suspected this - his teary comment about ‘maybe I missed teaching him something’ was sad although we don’t know what kind of dad he was.

I wonder if the girls were also studied or just a part of the research (to spy parenting styles for Part 2 of the research). God we also studied parenting styles - this was alsonprivably fed by this type of experiment.

American based researchers were such moral-free bastards. Don’t forget the std research that was done not all that mong ago too.

As a mother of multiples I can’t watch it. My children’s bond is the most amazing thing ever, they love they have for each other far surpasses anything they feel for me and Dh and that’s how it should be.

You mean the STD research done on black men Lord?? Was is syphyllis?

With the head banging on their cots as an example ohcarrie (and later the play behaviour observed by the researchers) it was SO unfair on the parents because had they known that they had been separated maybe they would have done some things differently and each of them wouldn't have been in acute mental health settings as teenagers - clearly something was very wrong due to that separation, but the parents had no idea that it may or may not have been a factor. I think they would have naturally worked some of their stuff out in the brotherly / sibling situation had they been kept together and whilst we all know siblings can get on really badly, they might probably have learned coping skills and how to modulate behaviour etc.

Going straight into that hedonistic nightclub lifestyle was a REALLY bad thing for them. V destabilising and I can't imagine for one second that hard drugs weren't involved in that scene at that time. That can't have helped either. And as one of them said, they were channelled into being the same, the same, the same but whilst they had that incredible connection that was purely a stunning example of genetics, they were individuals so one leaving the group would have had such a devastating effect on the others.

So sad all round.

Yes that was the study. Amazingly recent too. I loved the aunt - she was very wise and insightful (unlike the airhead research assistant ‘these are Picassos, here’s a photo of me with Errol Flynn...’)

Fascinating documentary! It reminded me of another unethical nature/nurture study that also resulted in suicide: David Reimer, Well worth a watch if you enjoyed this one: topdocumentaryfilms.com/dr-money-boy-with-no-penis/

It was so interesting but so sad too.
Extraordinary that a Jewish adoption agency would get involved in such a nefarious study after the awful experiences suffered by the Jews in WW2 in Europe.
The aunt was very interesting. She had such a lovely soft voice.
Did the stepmother rear one of the triplets?
Perhaps her husband was unable to talk about it ?
She seemed to know a lot about them.
I felt sorry for the teacher dad. He was being blamed for the suicide, I felt.
The triplets birth Mum, it was implied, had a drink problem.
It must have been heartbreaking giving up 3 babies

That's what I felt bean. Fifteen years after the end of WWII a Jewish adoption agency was complicit in conducting secret experiments on Jewish babies.
It was a very good documentary. I hope they feel it tells their story well.

I felt sorry for the teacher dad. He was being blamed for the suicide, I felt
I think they did make it clear he wasn’t to blame, and was as much a part of the experiment as the twins/triplets. The ‘agency’ would have known all about him and his parenting style after all (and the other two families), as they’d all adopted an older child before. They were deliberately chosen.

Only just finished watching it. So, the money came from ‘donors from Washington’. Riiight. So, the government then? Explains why the findings are suppressed for over one hundred years from the beginning of the experiment starting. Maybe the government actually admired Mengele and thought they could carry on his work with impunity.

Still though, in at least one of the cases (the family where the brother killed himself?) the existing adopted child was a girl so he probably parented the boy in a totally different 'man up, he needs discipline' way, so assuming they would parent these boys in the same way as the child/ren they'd already adopted was an incorrect one to make.

I also thought it was appalling that after the Holocaust that a Jewish adoption agency did it - staggering wasn't it! Yes, the Mengelaesque woman was a right cruel air-headed twit wasn't she.

I also thought at the end of it Judas that whilst the scientist was in the wrong, someone gave him the money and then they felt over exposed after the story broke and pulled the research from being published. An appropriate slap in the face for Mr N I feel - serve him right. He probably was harsh but his views and approaches to raising a young boy were probably pretty representative of the time and he did look genuinely hurt when he spoke about when he learned he was dead. It struck me as significant that he had the lads photo in what looked like a room full of old bits and bobs, not out in the main living room or next to their bed..

It's not that much less cruel than the experiment (they showed a small clip of it) where they took blankets and cuddlies off deliberately 'orphaned' monkeys sending them into utter distress. I'm sure those little boys were in that same level of distress too, though no one knew it.

Of course it's not the first social injustice - Switzerland is always keen to distance itself from its own eugenics programme that it had going for quite a while.

They all had big sisters who were adopted.

As soon as they said the benefactors were from Washington I immediately thought this was financed by the government.
Seems really unbelievable that a Jewish agency would be involved especially so soon after WW2.
My heart breaks thinking of the triplets and the other twins missing their sibling.

Utterly shocking.
Those poor parents who had to live with the fact they had allowed the psychologists access to the boys throughout their childhoods.

Obviously they were studying nature v nurture, but I found it interesting that the affect was being torn apart and attachment issues weren't discussed more, particularly in terms of the triplets' mental health. Yes, they had a genetic predisposition to psychological issues, but they had also been through two massive traumas by the age of 6 months - the first being separated from their mother (which would have happened anyway), and the second time being separated from one another (a manufactured, calculated, and unnecessary trauma).

It did cross my mind earlier in the film, that the whole adoption agency may have been a front for a psychology lab, and that there may have been many, many other experiments carried out (not just twin/triplet studies). But having watched it to the end I don't think it's the case, thank goodness.

Was there a definitive answer re nature v nurture ?

There was no conclusion to the study bean

My understanding is that they engineered the 3 families so that they had all adopted a girl a few years before the triplets so they all had an older sister.

If you watch the clip that's linked upthread, the answer was no. Genetics rule at the end of the day. In this Dr Money one they tried to turn a boy into a girl (I mean, as an educated scientist, how in God's name could you be that dumb to think putting them in a dress and giving them dolls to play with would 'turn' them into a female!!). The consequences were devastating. He finally reestablished himself as a male and went on to have a family but ultimately he killed himself. His brother developed v severe mental health problems from when he learned that his sister wasn't his sister but was in fact his brother - so his identity as a 'big brother to a sister' was completely broken and it literally broke him and he was never the same again and neither was their relationship. Dr Money continued putting forward that the research was a fantastic confirmation of his beliefs even after he knew it had been abject failure on every level. The mother talking in this documentary sounds constantly and heavily medicated - totally sad all round and another twins experiment where the brother was the control subject. It's just so appalling.