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Sept. 21, 2024
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In 1991, young Izidor Ruckel meets his adoptive family in San Diego. When he was in Romania’s Institute for the Unsalvageables, he begged a visiting American documentary filmmaker to take him to the U.S. The American helped him and others.
(Thomas B. Szalay / For The Times)Izidor Ruckel once lived in a Romanian orphanage called the Institute for the Unsalvageables.
An orphanage in Romania.
(Thomas B. Szalay / For The Times)Adoptive mother Marlys Ruckel and Izidor Ruckel in Denver. As a teen, Izidor rebelled against his parents. Years alter, a visit with his birth parents taught him the real value of adoptive parents.
(Thomas B. Szalay / For The Times)Ruckel adjusts a brace he wears after suffering from polio in his childhood.
(Thomas B. Szalay / For The Times)Ruckel visits a Romanian orphanage.
(Thomas B. Szalay / For The Times)Ruckel visits the Romanian orphanage where he lived. Back then, sedated outcasts with shaved heads were shackled to beds and even radiators.
(Thomas B. Szalay / For The Times)Sept. 21, 2024