“A Victim’s Perspective”

The following is a letter from one of Todros Grynhaus’s victims who testified at the trial when Grynhaus was convicted. The letter is addressed to 3 named so called ‘askonim’ who were involved in Grynhaus’s defence. The letter was written during the first trial when the jury were unable to reach a verdict. Grynhaus was convicted this week after a second trial.

This letter is published with the written consent of its author.

[Name and address]

8th March 2015

Dear Mr [], Mr [] & Mr []

I am addressing this letter to you, as part of the leading askonim looking to protect, defend and ultimately exonerate the notorious criminal in regards his current court case; I am aware that there are many other askonim involved and I am happy that they all take note of the points I put forward. Of course we are all mindful of that fact, that now that case has started, there is little your team can actually do, aside sitting and fidgeting in the public gallery each day, encouraging and inspiring your hero, giving him as much moral support as you can, whilst simultaneously absorbing the level of depravity your hero accomplished.

I don’t want to waste your time (though clearly you have lots of it) arguing the spuriousness of your belief. If the Leaders of our Community, those that are able to see the big picture, those that have access to so much detail, and who have been privy to so much material and information,  have been unable to convince you of the colossal miscalculation in your warped thinking, what hope do I, a layman of the community have?

So the purpose of this letter is not to attempt to convince you to ‘change sides’; it is very apparent that none of you have any experience in dealing with victims of abuse so it impossible for you to empathise with them. More worryingly by your misguided actions you have helped build a scenario where the abuser has become the victim and the abused have become the perpetrators.

So the purpose of this letter is simply to try and explain to you how the last few weeks have been from a victim’s perspective.

Let’s recap: A person I trusted, a person in a position of authority betrayed and abused me. The fact that this was committed over thirty years ago is mostly irrelevant. The fact that the crime took place in his family home; a mere few feet from his parents bedroom is perhaps slightly more related. The fact that it was not an isolated incident, not for me or for my fellow victims is central to this case.

For years I lived with self blame – I blamed myself for being friendly with his brother, I blamed myself for visiting their home every Shabbos and blamed myself for bring so weak and timid to fight back.  I blamed myself for the sexual abuse that occurred. I believed the abuse was somehow my fault. In some way, I felt my involvement became a significant factor leading to the abuse. I failed to see that victims are victims. My abuser started, maintained and pursued the abusive relationship from its conception until its ending.

Over time, I learnt the next step, that of acceptance. Accepting the fact, the fact that I was, and always will be, a victim of sexual abuse. For decades I didn’t want to admit it and so suppressed the memories. But I learnt that when a victim does not truly accept their traumatic past, it is pretty much impossible to reach the next step in the healing process. I learnt to move forward with life. I learnt that we can never change what happened in the past, yet we needed to deal with this current reality and start to live the rest of our lives.  And I learnt to be patient.

Can I ever forgive him? Up until two weeks ago I thought I could. I know he is (allegedly) human and humans make mistakes. I know that we all can make serious judgement errors and I also know that sometimes it the abused that themselves turn into abusers. Retribution and revenge in the form of many years behind bars will not take away the pain he caused, though if there is a concept of ‘closure’ then it is possible that a jail term would facilitate this.

But a fortnight into the trial I can now never forgive him. And I can never forgive you. For him to stand up in court, having been [] by one of the top QC’s in the United Kingdom, financed by money raised by your team and deny any wrongdoing is almost as sickening as the crime itself. To hear him stand up and emotionally declare himself candidate as ‘Dad-of-the-century’, to belittle his sickening deeds and to be the catalyst that may send out the message to our community that not only can you commit these heinous crimes, but that a group of Askonim will always be there to defend it, whatever and however, is in my opinion such a tragic error of judgement that it can only be explained by accommodating your complete and total ignorance to the subject. Or perhaps you do understand the severity of the crime, perhaps even if TG had been a member of ISIS and had chopped off the heads of twenty children in MH Car Park you would still have defended him as a ‘member of Family Klal Yisroel’ (end of quote).

I understand that the trial may end this week. Do I want him to be locked away for a long time? I have to be honest and say yes. Was this always my desire? Definitely not. Your collective sense of responsibility to defend a flawed member of Klal Yisroel in the manner that you have, has caused more damage than your limited intelligence will ever appreciate.

I can only hope that once this case is over, you hang up your ‘askonus’ boots and move back to eternal hibernation. The world in general and the Yiddishe world in particular will be a far safer place.

Yours sincerely

[Victim’s name]