60 years from when his siblings were stolen, Uncle Hewitt's pain remains

It was the day his 10 younger siblings were taken from their school in Deniliquin, or as he says, kidnapped.

"I come home to an empty house," Yorta Yorta Wemba Wemba Wiradjuri elder Hewitt Whyman said.

Uncle Hewitt, who was 17 at the time, was working to provide for his family while his parents were away as seasonal workers.

"I had no voice, the welfare swooped on the children at school," the 76-year-old Wagga resident said.

"They rang ahead and informed the teachers to lock the windows and doors."

Pain still as heavy

His siblings were placed in Cootamundra Girls' Home, Kinchela Boys' Training Home and Bomaderry Children's Home where they were fostered out non-Indigenous families.

"They left home with a name, and arrived at the new destination with a number," Uncle Hewitt said.

"They were kidnapped, taken away overnight."

They were part of the stolen generations which saw tens of thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people forcibly removed from the mid-1800s until the 1970s across Australia, according to the Healing Foundation.

The exact number of these "kidnapped children" will never be known. But the effect is still raw in Indigenous communities today.

"Sixty years ago, the pain is still as heavy as they day the left," Uncle Hewitt said.

For him, and the thousands of other members of the stolen generations, the family bond was torn a part, and never brought back together.

He said that his parents had worked hard to purchase a large five bedroom home in Deniliquin so that their children could return home, however, he said there were always more hoops for his parents to jump through.

"We as a family never bonded as a family, we never grew together as a family," he said.

"My father died of a broken heart at 51."

After his siblings were taken away, Uncle Hewitt enlisted in the army and served in Vietnam. He didn't see any of his brothers or sisters for five years.

By sheer coincidence, he was at the Sydney Cricket Ground watching the footy where he spotted a young boy in the crowd who he said "looked like me".

It was one of his brothers.

"He was on the fence with his mates, and all his white friends that he went to school with in Blacktown, he was fostered out soon after he went into care," Uncle Hewitt said.

"We saw each other and locked on, then he informed me about where all the other brothers and sisters were."

Over time, Uncle Hewitt has been able to reunite with each of his siblings who were taken far from Deniliquin.

He quoted songwriter and member of the stolen generations Archie Roach's song Took The Children Away.

"Took the children away,

the children away.

Snatched from their mother's breast

Said, "This is for the best, " took them away."

Although the song ends "the children came back", Uncle Hewitt said things were never the same.

Finding a voice

He hopes that when he shares his own story, people will hear it and ask to know more.

He is an elder and prominent member of Wagga's First Nations community who has been a longtime advocate for Indigenous voices.

"It's hard to tell the story, but I tell it because I thought if I tell it more and more to people who want to know, I pride myself on being a truth teller and advocacy for such," Uncle Hewitt said.

Each year, National Sorry Day is held on May 26 and remembers stolen generation survivors and the thousands of Indigenous families who still live with the pain.

The Wagga ceremony will be held at the Sorry Rock at Wollundry Lagoon, off Burns Way, from 10am on Sunday.