By Natasha Josefowitz, Ph.D.
LA JOLLA, California — In 1963 I was a student at Columbia University getting my master’s degree in clinical social work and writing book reviews for the Child Study Association. Dr. Peter Neubauer, a prominent child psychiatrist and Director of the Child Development Center, had seen my work and called to say he was looking to hire someone to identify psychiatrists and psychoanalysts writing about child development who might be interested in spending a week in Israel to study children living in a kibbutz. I was thrilled to be selected as his new research assistant. My literature review while at the Child Development Center led me to identify and contact 50 therapists from the U.S., Europe, and Israel who were interested in spending one week to observe children in a kibbutz. That summer I spent time in Kibbutz Dahlia with Dr. Neubauer organizing a one-week symposium which was held the following summer. As a result of that symposium, Dr. Peter Neubauer’s book, Children in Collectives—Child-rearing Aims and Practices in the Kibbutz was published by Charles Thomas Publishers, Springfield, Illinois, in 1965.
While working at the Child Development office, I would overhear colleagues talk about a study of identical twins that were up for adoption. I was told that there were no couples willing to adopt more than one child. The Louise Wise Adoption Agency decided that they should separate the babies so that each could find a home. I always thought it was so sad that siblings could not be adopted together. Dr. Neubauer saw this as an opportunity to study the issue of nature versus nurture. I had no involvement in that research, nor the decision-making process, nor its implementation. In 1965 I left the U.S., moved to Switzerland, and never heard anything further about the study.
Two years ago I got a phone call from a movie crew from England wanting to interview me about a film they were making concerning that twin study. I told them I really did not know anything about the study and would be of no use to them. They still wanted to interview me because, being in my nineties, I was the only surviving person who had been one of Dr. Neubauer’s research assistants. Wanting to be helpful, I agreed, and so a few months later seven crew members appeared in my apartment ready to film. They asked about objects in my apartment, about life in a retirement community, and about the amazing opportunity to study twins separated shortly after birth. They spent the day with me and also filmed the premises. I was happy to show them around, thinking I was putting White Sands on the map. They were very positive about the study saying what a wonderful opportunity it was to study nature versus nurture.
When I saw the movie, I was shocked and incredibly upset! I had never heard of these triplets and now was juxtaposed with them in the same movie as if I had some knowledge about their lives. It was awful to see the depiction of the triplets’ pain. In the movie, I am seen as condoning their separation for the purpose of research, when in fact the first I knew of it was when I saw the movie. When I left the U.S. in 1965, the triplets were babies. The movie shows them at age six months with no one wanting to adopt three boys. I now wonder whether putting them together in foster care or at least letting them know of each other’s existence would have been better. In the 1960s the policy was closed adoptions, where parents could not be told anything about the birth parents nor any existing siblings. Thankfully that policy has changed to open adoptions, where children can meet their birth mothers and siblings if they so wish. Fortunately today’s requirement for transparency does not permit this type of research to be conducted.
I have been contacted by movie companies and talk shows asking me to discuss this movie, but had to refuse as I signed a contract with the movie company to not to accept any invitations to further address the twin study. This column is being written because I have been erroneously accused of being involved in the separation and study of the triplets. Today as I look at the movie and read about the study, I am appalled that there was a time when this was accepted as legitimate research.
© Natasha Josefowitz. This article appeared initially in the La Jolla Village News. You may comment to natasha.josefowitz@sdjewishworld.com
“The movie shows them at age six months with no one wanting to adopt three boys.” – this is not accurate, and like the previous commenter said, one of the dads was willing to adopt all 3 of them.
“They still wanted to interview me because, being in my nineties, I was the only surviving person who had been one of Dr. Neubauer’s research assistants” – this is also obviously not true since they interviewed Dr. Lawrence Perlman who was also a research assistant.
The difference in my opinion is that Dr. Perlman came across quite a bit remorseful of his involvement and exhibited a lot of empathy. You on the other hand said, “this is why the study cannot be published, until they are gone” – meaning the people whose lives are impacted are dead, and you said it with a smile.
Bad editing? perhaps, but I wouldn’t entirely pin this on them.
I re-watched the film after reading this. Not sure who told you no one wanted to take twins or triplets. The movie doe not say at 6 months no one wanted to adopt them. The movie shows a very planned study where the triplets were placed at six months with families that already had adopted from Louise Wise Adoption Agency and their older daughters were about two years old. Even more cruelly, the boys were together for six months, and the two surviving triplets talked about how they showed signs of distress as babies because of being separated. One of the dads even said they would have taken all three boys if they had known there were two others.
The movie also shows that other pairs of twins were also a part of this separation study. You seem to be speaking for Dr. Neubauer when you say he saw it as an opportunity to study “Nature vs. Nurture.” The movie made clear that the agency and the doctor deliberately placed these triplets with three different types of fathers with three different economic backgrounds and three different parenting styles. He also followed other sets of identical twins who were separated.
I can see how you were “duped” into talking about Dr. Neubauer and how the interview was clumsily cut. They should have shown you your interview and let you see how they portrayed you. I am relieved to hear that you were not part of the study. That the doctor sealed the study until 2066 shows that there was definitely something to hide.
That Jewish people did this to other Jewish people in the name of “scientific study” is a horrible shame. Like one of the triplets said when he learned more about the study, “That’s Nazi shit.” It certainly was.
I’m sorry to hear that you were falsely portrayed.
Louise wise separated my sister from her twin in 1952, years before the study.
Her twin found my sister when they were 30. The agency also didn’t disclose that their mother was schizophrenic (we saw the report 30 years after the adoption). My sister was schizophrenic and her twin suffered with mental illness and killed herself a year after they had met.
Viola Bernard had a theory that twins would develop more of a separate identity if reared apart.