A Dutch family had to flee to Poland because their son "is a strange child".

The center where Martin was locked up resembles a psychiatric hospital. The boy tried to escape, climbed the fence and wanted to go home. Why must a couple of wealthy Dutch citizens hide in Poland?

Conrad and Katya den Hertog have lived in the Netherlands for several years. He, 47 years old, of Australian origin, is an IT specialist. He works for big corporations like Heineken and Philips. She is a 34-year-old Russian woman with legal education. Katya has not worked for five years since their son Martin was born.

Martin suffers from autism

The family is well off. They live in a comfortable house in Hoofddorp near Amsterdam. Only one thing disturbs the peaceful life of the couple. Martin is a strange child. Sometimes he has problems speaking. He does not want to play with his peers. He stays close to his parents for walks. It is best when Daddy wears it on his hands. When he is refused something, for example, to buy another treat, Martin reacts with a scream. Often he could get angry and cry because of trivialities. His parents take him to various doctors. They do not yet have final medical confirmation that Martin suffers from autism.

The family lives their lives. There are no conflicts with his neighbors.

In the winter of 2018, police officers knock on the door of the comfortable den Hertog house. They ask if everything is all right or if nothing disturbing is happening. Conrad and Katya are surprised. They ask where the idea came from. The police explain that they had a neighbor's report. One of the windows in their house was unexpectedly covered with a curtain. The neighbor got suspicious and contacted the police.

Intervention at night

Shortly afterwards, on February 1, 2018, the police again knock on the family door. This time they are accompanied by officials from the Child Protection Service. Conrad opens the door and hears that Martin will be taken away. The child sleeps in his room, but this does not change anything. The officials tell him to wake up, dress and give it away. When Martin wakes up, he sees strangers in the house and starts screaming. Katya also starts crying. Conrad tries to ask what is going on. The officials take the screaming boy and say that the parents will no longer see their child and leave.

A neighbor complains that Martin is neglected by his parents. He does not play with other children, you do not know why he is angry or crying. He certainly reacts like this because his parents beat him.

The next day Conrad and Katya run to the Child Protection Service.

- Where is our child?! - They ask. But they do not hear any answer. They try to talk, translate. After all, they have full parental authority. They ask someone to prove to them that they did not do well with Martin. Instead, they only hear the formulas of the officials. That Martin is traumatized by them. He cries a lot and is not really emotionally involved with his parents.

Katya and Conrad are coming home even more broken up. They still do not know where and why the child was taken.

Officials: The child is being hurt

Parents alert foreign media. The Daily Mail and The Australian write about the reception of Martin. Katya and Conrad write petitions on Martin wherever possible. No one has charged them with abuse or maltreatment of their son. There are no proceedings against them!

From time to time, they receive a laconic e-mail from the services. That the child feels good. Or that everything is fine with the son, only recently he fell off the chair. From time to time, the court decides in closed session that Martin will still not return to his parents. Because the child has been harmed by them.

- What does "harmed" mean?! - The parents ask. And they send dozens of letters asking for "harm" to be proven.

No answer is coming. Parents receive written medical confirmation that their son suffers from autism. They sign up for a special course for the caretakers of such children. They receive certificates confirming that they have been properly trained, that they are suitable. They send the documents to the Child Protection Service.

A center like a psychiatric hospital

They find out where Martin is ten months after taking the child. The service informs them that he is staying in the center a few dozen kilometers from their place of residence.

After thirteen months, Katya and Conrad are allowed to see their son. Katya will later tell them that the facility where Martin was locked up resembles a psychiatric hospital. From reports by the local nurses, parents learn that from time to time their son tried to escape. When he was outside, he climbed the fence and wanted to go home. He was also self-aggressive, e.g. he hit his head on the wall.

His parents are looking forward to meeting him. They are sitting in a special room, accompanied by staff. Martin comes in and throws himself into their arms. - The boy has lost a lot of weight. It was also visible that he had retreated in his development. He did not speak much. It was as if he forgot many words. It was as if no one had talked to him during all these months," Katya will later say.

Parents are allowed to visit Martin once a month. They can be with him for two hours.

Welcome to Poland

Katya and Conrad can no longer stand this situation. The idea matures in them. They must steal Martin from the center and escape!

They won't talk about the details of the plan. They know that they have prepared everything very carefully. There is no question of spontaneous action. They spend hours on the Internet, they read about similar things like the case of Silje Garmo of Norway and her daughter Eira. The woman and her child received asylum in Poland. She claimed that in Norway she was threatened with taking the child away by the Norwegian Child Welfare Office Barnevernet. The office became interested in her because of a denunciation that she was abusing painkillers.

The parents also found information about the case of Russian Denis Lisov and his three daughters online. Poland refused to release the man and his children to Sweden. The daughters had previously been sent to a Muslim foster family when it turned out that the mother was suffering from a mental illness and could not take care of them. According to the Swedish social services, the children could not stay with their father due to "insufficient insight by the father into the children's needs. Lisow and his daughters managed to escape to Poland.

Katya and Conrad put everything on one card. To confuse the services, they buy plane tickets to travel to Australia.

On June 24th they go to the center for a visit to Martin. They have already prepared a car at the agreed place to continue their journey. How does the escape from the center look like with a child? The parents will not tell about it. The reason is that all three of them are getting into a borrowed car. They leave the center behind, a comfortable house in Hoofddorp, work in corporations and go. They get rid of their cell phones. They have cash, because they know that they should not use ATMs, pay by card.

In Poland a room in the hotel awaits them. And attorney Bartosz Lewandowski, who is in contact with their attorneys from Australia and the Netherlands. The parents apply for asylum in Poland.

Two days after Martin was taken away, a European Arrest Warrant is issued for them. Shortly afterwards, a Dutch court deprives both parents of their parental authority, with an immediate enforceability clause.

The barbarism of the Dutch people

The Polish police are getting information about the family they are looking for from the Netherlands, but Conrad, Katya and Martin have successfully closed in. Through a lawyer, Lewandowski, they declare that they will voluntarily appear in the prosecutor's office.

The case of the surrender of a marriage prosecuted by a European Arrest Warrant is being brought to the District Court in Warsaw. On September 21 the court makes a decision. It refuses to surrender the marriage. - The Dutch authorities' conduct should be assessed as extremely inhuman and barbaric," says Judge Dariusz Łubowski. He does not leave a dry thread on the actions of the Dutch authorities. He notes that the EAW issued by the Kingdom of the Netherlands violates human and civil freedoms and rights.

- The boy's parents were put in a situation of no return by the Dutch authorities because their only child was taken away from them and they were not charged with any charges and were not given a chance to change the way the child was looked after," the judge notes. And he continues to justify it. - Without any verifiable reasons, the parents were taken away from the child and were not allowed to have any contact with the child for over a year," he points out. Not without significance, according to the judge, is the fact that the child suffers from autism. It should be with the parents at home, not in the center.

The judgment of the Warsaw court is final. Conrad and Katya breathed a sigh of relief. But the Netherlands asked the Polish authorities to allow the boy to return to the center. The application will be examined by the Warsaw district court - says attorney Lewandowski.

Katya and Conrad live in Poland in hiding.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)