Sinead Burke (4:29)

Earlier this year, I was walking through Dublin in a suburban area just outside of the city. I wasn't really paying much attention. There was cars in one big queue waiting to make their way into town. I think I have my ipod in my ears. And it wasn't until I saw movement out of the corner of my eye that I turned around. A car had pulled out of the traffic and into the bus lane. That was strange. Stranger still, they stopped right where I was walking. Nosiness got the better of me and I looked into the car. I saw the passenger take out her phone. She put it up to the car window and aimed it at me. The camera flashed, the photo was taken, and as quickly as it happened, they drove off. I have no idea what that photo was used for. And even more scary in the era of social media, I have no idea how far it went. I'm terrified to think of what the caption might have said, and even more so what the comments underneath might say. I don't think I've ever felt more upset or felt more vulnerable than in that one moment. And if I had to question why that left me so shaken and upset, I think it was because the only thing they saw about me in that moment was that I was different. But what do you do after something like that happens to you? Only try your best to carry on as normal, whatever that word means. So I got on the bus surrounded by complete strangers and remember having to physically hold in the emotion and the tears. I didn't want to be seen to be crying in public. I got to college and my friends, my lecturers, my peers and colleagues, they could see that I was visibly shaken and asked me what had happened. So I told them, and understandably, they were shocked. They were hurt on my behalf. But one of them really kindly said, you know, Sinead, maybe They just really liked what you were wearing. You know, you have a great hat on today. It could be that. And that made me feel better for about 30 seconds. And then I remembered that, you know, I'm almost 25 and for two decades I have lived my life of walking down a street and somebody pointing at me or nudging their friend to tell them that I'm near for staring at me, or worse, calling me names. And on all of those days, I wasn't wearing a hat. And what upsets me most about those moments is that they only see me as something different or unusual. They only see that I'm three foot five and that's all they think I am. They don't see that I'm a teacher. They don't see that I'm a broadcaster or currently a PhD student. They don't see that I have this insatiable interest in fashion. They just see me as something odd. And being this hype can definitely have its challenges, particularly when you're female with an insatiable interest in fashion. Finding clothes or shoes to fit can often be quite difficult. I spent my whole life teetering on children's wear or womenswear or trying to find shoes that are a size 11, that don't over sexualize children, but also don't have butterflies or sequins either. And it's a constant battle. And if you go into a shop, it's not just the clothes or the garments that can be difficult, but reaching them. And then you pick something and you find something that you love and think, maybe this won't fit. I'll go to the changing room and often I'm not strong enough to pull the curtain closed and leave myself vulnerable to be seen. Or perhaps there's a door on it and I can't reach the lock on the door. Or when I was in the States, when I was about 13 years of age, I went to the dressing rooms and theirs are built a little bit differently to ours. The door comes to my navel. That's it. I would be better off changing in the middle of the shop. But things like that aren't just unique to my shopping experience. I can remember a couple of weeks ago I was queuing for a cup of coffee somewhere that I frequent quite often. And although the counter is high, it wasn't high enough that the barista couldn't see me and I was next in line. But the woman who was being served beside me, she was a good bit older than me. And the barista says to her, is that Your little girl. Everybody was incredibly awkward and silent. My natural reaction was to laugh. And the woman beside me said, no, I think that's a woman. She was right, I think. But if I'm honest, I could have had a way out. When I was 12 or 13, my life could have been very different. I could have chosen to partake in a surgery and an operation that would make me taller. It's called limb lengthening. And they ask you to consider it at that age before you get your growth spurt, before puberty happens, and they deliberately break the bone. And over the course of a year, there are pins in your leg, and you must turn them a quarter of an inch each day so that the bone deliberately separates further and further and new marrow grows. You're confined to a wheelchair for a year, and the maximum height that you can achieve is approximately 6 inches. At 3 foot 5, that would make a big difference. But that's not something I had to decide today as a grown adult, but as just a kid. At 12 or 13, I went to the hospital. The doctors told me of the possible complications. I had a surgery date. They said, go home and think about it. I didn't sleep for days. I talked about it with my parents and my siblings, and although they're really supportive, this was my decision to make, and they gave me that freedom to do so. My parents and my family are a little bit different to most people's. My dad is a little person like I am. My mother is of average height, and I'm the eldest of five children. All of my brothers and sisters are tall like most of you. And I imagine that informed my decision. Did I want to be like the rest of my brothers and sisters, or was I happy to be like my dad? I had to question myself. Who was I getting this surgery for and how would it help? After a long time, I realized that the person who I would be getting this surgery for was not me, but it was for everyone else. It was to make other people feel better about the way that I looked. And at 13, I made the decision that if people didn't like me, if people didn't want to be my friend or boyfriend or relationship or any sort because I was this size. But they weren't the kind of people I wanted to associate with anyway. And I decided at 13 that I didn't need the surgery to be me. Much like my dad, and with the support of my family and friends, I would find a way out of things. I would find my way around the physical environment differently, perhaps to you But I would do it. And I think that kind of sense of confidence also spurred a naivety in me, something which I didn't realize until I entered the big bad world, which for me at 18 or 19, resulted in college. I was training to be a primary school teacher and I remember on my first few days a well meaning friend said to me, sinead, how are you going to do this? How are you going to work with the children? They're going to be bigger than you, they won't take you seriously. And it wasn't until that moment that I realized she might have a point. And to give you an example of something that happened, I was teaching six class boys who are 11 and 12 and approximately five foot tall, some of them taller. And I was in the middle of a maths lesson and my door was open. It was quite a sunny day, we needed the air. And there was another boy from a younger class standing outside my room. And from having a conversation with him, you might understand that he had challenges of his own. But one of the more boisterous individuals in my class stood up, pointed at him and said, he's a weirdo. What do you do in that situation as a teacher? You have a huge curriculum. Do you keep going because you don't have time? But I felt that comment in my heart, in my head and in my stomach and I didn't know what I was going to do, but I couldn't let it go. I said, that's interesting. What does that word mean? They said, you know, weirdo. I said, I don't. And thinking of my feet, I asked, you know, can we pull out the dictionary and let's have a look what the word means? So we did. And beside, the word weirdo was abnormal. I couldn't believe it. I said, what does the word normal even mean? They said, you know, the same as everything else. I said, well, boys, normal for me is being 3 foot 5, being female, not living in Dublin and not wearing a uniform to school. So if I'm normal, what does that make all of you? Interestingly, they didn't have that reaction and there was a bit of thinking and I said, okay, I won't push you. So being normal for you is being male, being about 12 or 13, living in Dublin and wearing a uniform to school. So if you're all normal, what does that make me personally? That's a really scary place to put yourself in professionally as a teacher? It's terrifying. I had no idea what they would say next. I was hoping it wouldn't be A derogatory comment about my teaching. All of a sudden, I could remember my first year in college and my friend telling me, how are you going to do this? How will the children treat you? Seriously? And I was panicking up at the top of the room. I'm not afraid to admit that I was vulnerable standing there. And one of the quieter boys in the class put up his hand and he said, don't worry, Ms. Burke, you're not a weirdo. You're just different. Never in my life have I been more proud to be different than in that moment. Being a little person has shaped my experiences. It has molded my personality, but it doesn't define me. And if I was to look back or put myself in the position again of the car stopping beside me, of the passenger taking my photo, and if for whatever reason, I had a magic wand or some higher power and I could choose to play any character in that story, I would pick me every single time. Gurmeela Hakov.

Jay Allison (18:32)

Sinead Burke is currently a PhD student within the School of Education at Trinity College, Dublin. She is the alternative Miss Ireland Emeritus and documents the lives of some of the country's most intriguing people on her blog, Minnie Melange. We'll be back in a moment with more stories from this live Moth event in Dublin. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by prx. This is the Moth Radio Hour from prx. I'm Jay Ellison. You're listening to a special edition of the Moth Radio Hour with stories recorded live at an event held in Dublin, Ireland. Here's your host, Dan Kennedy.

Dan Kennedy (19:40)

When I asked our next storyteller what was the last rule you broke, the first thing he said is, I am the most obedient person. Which I thought he really wanted to make that clear. He was like, first of all. And I was like, okay, understood. Can you dig deep, you know, take yourself too seriously? I told him. And in the next breath he said, well, I am a cyclist and I do run red lights constantly. Please welcome to the stage Tommy Reichenthal.

Tommy Reichental (20:32)

Well, I'm in Belgium. Belgium, concentration camp. I don't even know what concentration camp is. I'm only nine years old and I see fire around me and Watchtower, so I know I am not free. Not long before, I was in my village called Merace in Slovakia, where I was still playing. In summer, I used to run barefoot. In winter, we used to toboggan. So this place was, for me, sort of little paradise. But now I found myself that I'm little prisoners. I'm confused, I'm starving, I'm cold and I'm very very miserable. It was 16th of October 1944 when we were betrayed, arrested by the Gestapo and deported to this hell on earth, Bergen Belsen. And I remember this particular day when we the children began to realize what is happening around us and learn while the adult already knew. There was a usual routine. We were in bergen Belsen perhaps 10 days, two weeks. Every morning we have to go on a roll call and we have to stand in freezing cold outside for an hour to wait for our supervisor. They were young women, SS guard. But this particular day they were accompanied by a group of armed soldiers. And I could hear whisper around something is wrong. Why these soldiers they would call our number and we had to say yeah. After the roll call we were told to go to the hut and bring our blankets and towels out because we are going to go to another place to have a shower. Now that was good news, a hot shower. We're going to go to walk. And for me it was great news because I didn't need to go to the washroom outside with washing myself with freezing cold water. But there were looks around and I thought the people felt sort of uncomfortable. And we ran in to pick up the blankets and the towels and there was quite activity inside the hut. And I saw this woman sort of leans against her neighbor and said, you think everything is okay? They are telling us the truth. She just shrugged her shoulder and didn't say anything, but I could see she had tears in the eyes. I wanted to ask my mother what's going on? But she was busy helping my oma to pick up the towering blankets and also helping my cousin Chava. Aunt Margot was standing in the doorway and she was urging us to come out quickly because the soldiers outside were very impatient waiting for us. So slowly people were coming out and we had to be put three and three into a row. And when everybody was out we began to march around by the perimeter. Everybody was very quiet, it was very cold and I felt a little bit uncomfortable thinking why is everybody so sad? I mean I heard a woman talking about we would like to have shower and suddenly we have it and they don't feel any happy about it. I saw a woman front of me suddenly taking the wedding ring off her finger and she looking around if any of the soldier are looking at her. And then she threw the wedding ring into the ground to the dust and talked to her friend and she said these bastards will not get my gold. And we continued to go. And I thought we were going for couple of miles. But it perhaps was about 30 minutes or so till we stopped front of this big building, concrete building. And from the roof this tall chimney. And there were gasp around me. And one woman even shouted sort of loudly, said oh my God. And my brother and my cousin, they were puzzled and I couldn't understand the panic around me. The next day the soldiers were urging us to go into the building. Schnel, schnell. So we were pushed in. We come to this long hallway hall. On the left side we saw benches. There was chemical smell hanging in the air. And there were metal with bar on the top with hangers on it. And on the right side we saw these heavy metal doors. Again the soldiers were barking order to us. I didn't understand, they were speaking German. But Auntie Margo then conveyed the order that we have to undress and put our clothes on the trolleys and the blankets, everything to leave there. There were even numbers on these trolleys. We were supposed to remember the number and the woman. And everybody began to undress. The soldiers were standing on the side. And they were joking and smiling, making remarks and faces. And when we were standing there all naked, there was this little incident that one of the soldiers, he was rather young, suddenly was walking towards us. And he was looking firmly on my cousin Chava, like my brother and myself. She didn't look very Jewish. She had long golden hair, blond hair dangling over the shoulder. When my aunt saw it, she stepped front of her daughter and stopped the soldier. And the soldier said what is this Aryan girl doing here? And my aunt retorted rather loudly, so that the SS woman could hear it go away. And he turned around and he walked away. And no more was said anything about it. When I was looking around, it was shocking to see the old woman with the white skin and crinkled skin, including my grandmother. They were so pathetic standing there, innocent. I felt ashamed and insult. I was tainted again. We were told to move towards the doors. And as we were coming to the door, everybody got a piece of soap. And we entered this large room with concrete floor. And on the ceiling pipe crisscrossing the ceiling. With shower heads all over the ceiling. And when everybody was in, suddenly it become very silent. We didn't hear the soldier anymore. The door was slammed behind us. And we all stood there. And the adult all looked up towards this sort head. I didn't know what was happening. I saw some of the women were crying. And my mother took myself and my brother and pressed against her body it was cold and we were standing there for about minute or two, maybe couple of seconds when we heard this girl going through the pipe. My mother squeezed us even harder. I could hear her heart beating fast and she was breathing very hard and like she was gulping for air. Everybody was looking towards the ceiling. We heard this noise coming nearer and nearer and suddenly hot water was sprouting from the shower head. And that was exactly what I was expecting. But I couldn't believe what was happening around me. The women were kissing their children. They were laughing and crying at the same time. They were embracing one another. I couldn't understand what is all this happening around. I just wanted to wash myself with the soap and hot water for a long time. I didn't hear such laughter while we were in the camp. In fact, that was the only shower that we had during our stay in the camp for the under the German imprisonment. And the women of course the adult among us late in 1944 already knew about Auschwitz Birkenau. They knew about the gas chamber. But we kids, we did not know anything about it. Million Jews were fooled by giving soap in the hand, pretending they going to have shower and they ended up in gas chamber. So I can only imagine today what our mothers were thinking at the time. They were thinking that we were going there. Bergen Belsen was liberated on 15th April 1945. That day was the day that our nightmare ended. Thank you.

Dan Kennedy (34:04)

Tommy Reichental.

Jay Allison (34:08)

Tommy Reichental is an engineer, author and human rights activist. In 2012, Reichental was awarded the Order of Merit by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany for his untiring commitment to furthering mutual understanding, reconciliation and German Irish friendship. Reichental is the author of I Was a Boy in Belsen and he's currently working on his second book. In a Moment, our final story from this live event at Liberty hall in Dublin, Ireland. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by prx. This is the Moth Radio Hour from prx. I'm Jay Allison, producer of this show. You're listening to a live Moth event held in Dublin, Ireland with the theme the Ties that Bind. Here's your host, Dan Kennedy.

Dan Kennedy (35:33)

When I asked our next storyteller what was the last rule that you broke? She said, I auditioned. This is so. I can't believe this. Okay, I auditioned to be an extra on the Vikings and I cut the cue, which was very, very long. She since has told me I would really. It was a mistake. I'd like to apologize to the city of Dublin, which seemed a bit much unless you were all actually trying to be extras on this show. At any rate, that's her situation. Please welcome to the stage Anne Driscoll.

Anne Driscoll (36:25)

I know a man named Angel. He's not really a friend, at least not in the traditional sense of a friend. He's a prisoner, and he's serving a life sentence for a murder he didn't commit. And he's been in jail for 21 years, and for almost the last 10 years, I've been looking into his case and reading case files and court transcripts. And, you know, when you get involved in a case, you find that there are a lot of mistakes, very often in an innocence case like that. And to. To be honest with you, I'm not a lawyer. In fact, I have no training in the law. I'm a journalist. And truth be told, I have no training as a journalist either. I actually started out as a social worker. And I realized very quickly when I switched from social work to journalism, that the skills are the same. You have to get to talk to people, get them to trust you, tell you things, but also the function is the same. You're basically acting as a witness for someone, and you're validating their experience. And I found when I started doing innocence work and investigating cases in which people have been wrongfully convicted, that it's. It's even a hybrid of both of those things, because you're listening to their stories and reporting it to the world that a mistake has happened. And very often it's even more profound. It's such an amazing tie that binds you to that person, because very often, you're the only person that believes them. And so Angel's case, as I said, I've been working on for almost 10 years, and I've gotten to know him very well. And even though I wouldn't say he's my friend, I do care about him deeply. And I went to visit him once when he turned 43, and it was his birthday. And so I bought him Hostess cupcakes out of the vending machine, and I sang him Happy Birthday. And he told me that it was the only time that anybody had ever visited him on his birthday. And in fact, the people from the Innocence Project where I worked, they were his only visitors ever. So, in large part because of my experience with Angel, I decided that I would apply for a Fulbright scholarship. And I was very lucky to get it. And I came here to Dublin in September of 2013 to work with the Irish Innocence Project. And the idea of my Project was to teach the law students working on the Irish Innocence Project at Griffith College how to investigate an interview in order to better progress the cases. And it was a fantastic year. It was like the best year of my life. And it was so good and I was so lucky that I was invited to come back for another year. And the last night that I was here in May, before I went back to Boston, I went to the ATM machine and I took out €120. And I was walking back along the Grand Canal to my apartment, which overlooks Griffith College, where I teach. And it was a beautiful night and it was still light out. And I thought, oh, you know, it's your last night, you should take pictures. So I started snapping pictures of the neighborhood. And then when I got to my apartment, I thought, oh, you know, you should get some pictures of Griffith too. So I went over to. It's right at Harold's Cross Bridge, and I went over to the bridge and I was leaning on the railing with my iPhone snapping pictures, and a guy came up on a bike behind me and tried to grab my phone. And, you know, this was not what I was expecting. And you know, when something like that happens, you have like no idea how you're going to react. This is how I reacted. Get the fuck out of here. And so we started wrestling. I have no idea what I was thinking, but I got my phone back and I thought, okay, that's it, that's the end of this. But it wasn't, because when I looked while we were wrestling, my handbag actually got caught on the handlebars of his bike. And I could see that he saw that if he got away, he was going to get my bag. And I thought to myself, oh, my God, in a split second I realized, if he gets my bag, he's going to get actually €150, my credit cards, my GNIB card, my PPS card and my passport. And I was leaving the next day and I knew, if he gets my passport, I am not going to make it to see my son get his doctorate in physical therapy. I'm a mother, you know where this is going, right? I went mental. So we started fighting again. We're wrestling, I almost pull his pants off, we're fighting. And at some point I end up on the ground and my pants get shredded, my knees get shredded. And I could see that he saw that other people were starting to notice what was going on. He took off. He left my bag. He also left his bike. So when this was happening out of the corner of my eye. I had seen a car pull over on the bridge and a guy got out of the car and he said, I'm an off duty garda. I saw the whole thing. I've called for assistance. The police are coming. And I thought, oh, my God, the irony of this. I have spent my whole year here tearing apart the work of investigations, exposing mistakes. Doesn't make me that popular with the police. And here they are coming to my rescue. And so I was just like, I just can't believe the irony of this. And the next thing that happened is a woman came over from across the street and she said, I saw the whole thing. She said, he went down under the bridge, he went that way. And she said, by the way, she said, you are the only person I know who gets mugged and then ends up mugging the mugger. We were having great crack at the crime scene. And then the third guy comes over and he's on a bike and he says, I follow the guy on my bike through the lanes. He said, I call the police. I think they have him. So the police come and they say, what happened? So I say, well, you know, I teach at Griffith College. I'm leaving tomorrow for Boston. Guy tried to mug me. And he said, oh, what do you teach? And I thought, I am not telling you. I teach wrongful convictions. I said, journalism. So he said, well, would you mind coming down? We'd like you to ID the guy. Now, what I didn't tell you about angel is the reason why angel is in jail for life for a murder he didn't commit is because of bad eyewitness identification. And I know from my work that 75% of the wrongful convictions that are overturned based on DNA evidence are due to bad eyewitness identification. I mean, everybody thinks, like, if you see something, it's like a tape recorder in your head, right? You're going to have accurate recall later. But that's not at all the way memory works. Memory is highly fallible and highly malleable, and yet it's very, very convincing to a jury. And in the case of angel, the guy that ID'd angel couldn't tell time, couldn't tell height, couldn't tell weight, couldn't tell distance or time, what day of the week it was his birthday, what town he was in. So I was being asked to go down and ID somebody. And I know that this kind of id, it's called a show up. And it's the worst form of ID because it's completely subjective. It's not like, you have eight people in a lineup, and you don't know you're supposed to pick somebody out. You don't even know if the right person is there. In this case, there's one person and a couple of cops. And it's just like, I am just so distraught because I don't want to make the wrong identification. I know what happens to people when things go awry and when you. Because I've heard the stories. I've heard what happens to people when they tell you their story. And how for no apparent reason, somebody is arrested, tried and convicted and sentenced for something they didn't do. And the fallout that happens. They lose their homes, their families, their livelihood. So it was a. I was not looking forward to doing this at all, but what choice do I have? I'm leaving the next day. So I go down, and there's a guy there, and he's leaning against the fence with a cop on either side. And I look at him and I think, yeah, he had short blonde hair, but was he that short? I don't know. And I look, and he's got a navy blue tracksuit on. And, yeah, I remember I almost pulled it off of him. But were the stripes white or green? I have no idea. And I think, I just don't want to make a mistake. I don't want to be responsible for somebody else's wrongful conviction. And I, all of a sudden, have sympathy for eyewitnesses because it's really, really hard to be an eyewitness. In the end, I say, yeah, it looks like the guy, but I'm not sure. Believe me, I'm not sure. So they asked me, will you come back and make a statement? Sign a statement? I say, yeah. We go back to the police station, and the cop that took my statement did everything as he should. He didn't misconstrue anything. I said. There weren't any misleading questions. I signed the statement. It's exactly what I told him. So in this case, everybody did everything they were supposed to do. And even more so, I leave, and I had plans to meet a friend for a last pint, maybe two or three. And when I meet with her, when we go to the pub, we're telling, you know, I'm telling her what happened. And, you know, truthfully, it wasn't the mugging that unsettled me and rattled me. It was the idea of having to ID someone. That was what was really unsettling for me. That's what really shook me up. And, you know, we were talking about it. And then the phone rings exactly three hours after this mugging happened. And it was the police. And they said, we just want you to know that the guy has confessed. I was like, and he said, he asked us to call you. He wanted to apologize and tell you he was sorry. And I was just so relieved, so relieved because, you know, one more angel wouldn't be created. And truthfully, I'm waiting any day now to hear whether angel is going to be freed. But the takeaway for me was that, yes, it's a very profound experience. You're bound to somebody, you're tied to somebody when you hear their story and when you act as a witness. But it's also a profound one when you're an eyewitness. Thank you very much.

Jay Allison (50:44)

Anne Driscoll Ann Driscoll is currently the Irish Innocence Project Journalist, Project Manager, and has served as the Senior Reporter since 2006 at the Justice Brandeis Law Project of the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. That's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time. And that's the story from the Moth. Your host this hour was Dan Kennedy, host of the Moth Podcast. The stories in the hour were directed by Kathryn Burns and Meg Bowles. The Moth directorial staff includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin, Janess and Jennifer Hickson. Production support from Whitney Jones, Kirsty Bennett and Julian Clancy. Most stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the Storytellers. This event was recorded live in Dublin, Ireland by Darren Cummins and produced in partnership with the American Embassy, Fulbright Ireland and rte. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from American Football, Helios and Dan Romer and Ben Zeitlin. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by prx. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.