How twins were separated and raised in families with different incomes

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In the 1950s and 60s, psychological experiments were carried out, which today are chilling. For example, in the United States, three twin brothers were separated in infancy. Scientists wanted to find out how much upbringing affects a person's character. After 19 years, the brothers, who grew up in different families, found out the truth and met (they even made a film about them). We tell their story.

The boys found out about each other by accident

When 19-year-old Robert Saffron first attended college, the people around him acted strangely. He was greeted and congratulated on his return as an old acquaintance. One of his new friends, Michael Domnitz, became suspicious. He asked Robert directly: is he a native child in his family? When I heard a negative answer, he exclaimed: "Yes, you have a twin brother!"

Domnitz was friends with a sophomore named Edward Galland, who, like Robert, was adopted as a child. He called him on the phone. Robert was stunned: in the receiver he heard exactly the same voice as himself. On the same day, they met at Edward's house, where he lived with foster parents. When he opened the door, Robert was shocked a second time. He seemed to see himself in the mirror. “Everything around at that moment seemed to cease to exist, it was just me and Eddie,” Robert recalls now.

A few months later, another college student, David Kellman, saw the story of the twin reunion on the news and recognized himself in photographs. He found the phone number of Edward's parents and called them. "Oh my God, yes they crawl out of all the cracks!" - in their hearts said his adoptive mother after this conversation. None of the adoptive parents knew that their son had brothers. They were separated to conduct a psychological experiment that lasted nearly two decades.

How it all started

The triplet was born in July 1961. Their mother was a teenager. When the brothers met her many years later, they had the impression that she "got pregnant at prom out of stupidity." They did not communicate anymore. The brothers were separated when they were six months old. At that time, a group of researchers led by a renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Peter Neubauer, was looking for an adoption agency that would help them conduct a special experiment. Studying twins and triplets who would be raised in different families, scientists wanted to find out how the environment affects the formation of character, which traits are inherited, and which people acquire during life. In other words, what determines our behavior: nature or nurture. Several adoption agencies have flatly refused to help Neubauer's group. They believed that scientists themselves do not understand what they are doing, and that it is by no means possible to separate twins or triplets during adoption. However, Eliza Weiss's agency dealing with the fate of the twins agreed to this model of adoption. The families that took the boys lived no less than a hundred miles apart. None of the adoptive parents knew about the other brothers. They did not think much about the ethical side of the experiment: in the 1950s and 1960s, psychologists repeatedly conducted experiments that are now considered inhumane.

Twins under supervision

In the adoption agency, the expectant parents of the twins were told that psychologists had already begun to observe the child and would really not want to interrupt the process. The psychological accompaniment itself was described as "the most common." Later, the parents claimed that they had been given to understand that if they did not agree, they would not receive the child. The exact number of children who were separated for the experiment is still unknown. Some sources say that from five to 20 triplets and twins could be given to different families.

Brothers Robert, Edward and David were placed in three families with different income levels and social status. David Kellman's father was a simple man, he owned a vegetable tent. Edward Galland was middle-class. He failed to build a relationship with his adoptive father: they had too different views on what a man should be. Robert Saffron lived in a wealthy family and suffered from a lack of attention from his father, who was often away. The researchers regularly visited the children with foster families. In the first two years after adoption, they came at least four times a year and at least once a year as the boys got older, says Three Same Strangers, director Tim Wardle.

Meetings with researchers were always held at home. The children were offered tests that tested their cognitive abilities, such as drawing or putting together mosaics. Moreover, they were always recorded on camera. Officially, the study lasted ten years. From some of the reports that were made available to the film crew, it is clear that surveillance continued after. Even as infants, the brothers developed behavioral problems. Foster parents said the children banged their heads on the crib bars when they were upset. Two brothers, Kellman and Galland, were treated in a mental hospital before college. Saffron received a suspended sentence. “Those who studied us saw that something was wrong, but they didn’t help us in any way. This is what makes us so angry,”says Kellman.

We wanted to be the same

At first, the brothers' life after the reunion became like a continuous holiday. Tall, notable young people have appeared in television programs and movies with Madonna. They began to rent an apartment together.

The appearance of brothers could paralyze traffic on the streets. Especially if they did this: two walked, and the third sat on their shoulders. “It was as if we fell in love with each other. They spoke something like this: “Do you like it? And I like it too! "" “We wanted to be the same and love the same things,” Kellman recalls. But at times the brothers began to communicate more in pairs, and each understood that he did not want to be the third odd. At the same time, the boys' adoptive parents were trying to figure out why they were separated in infancy. The parents wanted to sue, but not a single law firm took up the case. Other families are trying to adopt children through the same agency, and the proceedings could interfere with them, lawyers said.

In secret until 2065

Neubauer's research, in which the brothers participated, has not yet been published in its entirety. The scientist handed it over to the archives, the papers are stored at Yale University, and access to them is limited until 2065. He announced some of the results of the experiment in the book "The Trace of Nature: the Genetic Foundations of Personality" in 1990 and in an article in 1986. Psychologists believe that they have significantly expanded the understanding of the influence of nature and nurture on humans. But in the movie Three Identical Strangers, none of these publications are mentioned. It was only during the filming of the film that the brothers managed to get them to have access to the documents and videos of the experiments. It took nine months. They received nearly ten thousand pages of reports - though heavily edited. Materials about the researchers' visits to children and the results of the tests they conducted were not there. But there were several videos. On them, little brothers collect mosaics, write tests or playfully glance at the person behind the camera. Two of the brothers are now alive, Robert Saffron and David Kellman. The third, Edward Galland, suffered from bipolar disorder and committed suicide in 1995. He is survived by his wife and daughter. Of all the three, it seemed that Galland needed brothers the most. They replaced his family (with his father, he did not improve the relationship). Moved at least three times to live closer to them. Before dying, he settled across the street from David Kellman. Their daughters are close friends.

After their brother's suicide, Saffron and Kellman became distant from each other. Today they live and work in different cities.