Romanian orphan turns lens to his past

Izidor’s story

Izidor Ruckel was born in 1980 in Tasnad, a village in northwestern Romania. After being abandoned as a baby because one of his legs was deformed, he was transferred to an orphanage designated for children with mental and physical problems.

Ruckel described his early years in his autobiography, “Abandoned for Life,” which he started writing as a teen and published when he was 22.

At the orphanage, he wrote, he received savage beatings. Injections with used syringes. Taunting about not having parents. Meager, moldy food. Fleeting exposure to sunshine or fresh air.

The orphanage’s name revealed everything about the Romanian state’s attitude toward its most vulnerable citizens: “Hospital for the Unsalvageables.” Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena wanted to grow the number of citizens, so contraception and abortion were outlawed under all circumstances. When parents couldn’t care for their swelling families, or when children were born with physical or mental conditions, the state’s solution was these orphanages.

View the photo gallery: Izidor’s story

After the “20/20” program aired, little Izidor’s life took a sharp turn for the better. A San Diegan named John Upton watched the program and understood those children were more than “salvageable” — they were lovable, beautiful, worthy. And they were adoptable. Through Upton’s efforts, several children were adopted by San Diego families. Izidor was one of them.

He landed in San Diego in 1991, joined his new parents Danny and Marlys Ruckel, and began a whole new way of life in Poway — filled with swim meets, birthday parties, his own bedroom. And hugs.

His parents, who adopted another Romanian orphan and had three biological children, took him to doctors. A series of operations helped strengthen his leg.

When he was in his early 20s, Ruckel returned to Romania to meet his biological parents, he wrote in his autobiography. They asked him for money and criticized him for taking his adoptive family’s name.

Around that time, “20/20” did a follow-up program that showed conditions in the orphanages had not uniformly improved. Some were still atrocious.

“I watched it so many times,” Ruckel said in a telephone interview from Denver, where he lives now. That was when he realized, “I want to do something.”

‘Given Our Chance’

For decades, the world has read and heard about Romania’s orphans. This film is a rare chance to hear from two of these orphans — what daily life was like in the institution, but also how it felt to leave.

In the film, he talks about the difficulties of joining a family where life was marked by expressions of love and an absence of violence. He was constantly afraid of being sent back. He pushed his family away. He’d lost everyone he loved, so why would these people be different? Instead, he says in the film, they stayed patient and constant, and eventually he grew closer to them.

The filmmakers also reconnect with some of the people who helped bring them to America. One is Janice Tomlin, a former producer at “20/20” who ended up adopting two girls from Romania.

Another is Sarah Padbury, an adoptive mother who talked about how the purpose of adoption can change for parents. “What happened with us is, you get to the point where you’re adopting kids, and you don’t need anymore children, but you realize that there are children who still need families,” she says in the movie. “Adoption changes. It changes from getting a kid for yourself to giving your family to a child who needs a home.”

One person they couldn’t interview was John Upton, the filmmaker who traveled to Romania many times and brought back orphans to San Diego. The children called him “Johnny.” He was fatally shot last year, and his neighbor has been ordered to stand trial.

On the phone, Ruckel credited Upton — along with his adoptive parents and God — for saving his life and helping him achieve what he has.

Ruckel said he was unprepared for the response the movie has generated. The Washington Post profiled him, he was on NPR this week. But most moving, he said, has been hearing from other orphans.

“There were so many orphans that I talked to, after the documentary came out, who continue to go through a lot of problems,” he said. “They realized, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not the only one. Look at all this. The story’s the same as mine. Now I don’t feel alone.’ ”

When someone is faced with hardship, there are two paths to choose from, Ruckel continued. “You’re always going to have that (trauma) in your mind. You can either live with it as a nightmare, or you can live with it as hope,” he said. “The hope is that you can help other people, share your story, and help other people overcome just by hearing what you went through and how you overcame it.”

He wants to visit Romania again — “I’m sick. I’m homesick,” he said — and start working on a second documentary. The first was about two boys that got away. Now he’s raising funds (from the film, book, speaking proceeds and donations) to tell the stories of the ones who were left behind.

Izidor had “20/20,” his parents and John Upton. Now, Romania’s orphans have Izidor.

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