My father abducted me
When Janus Bakrawi was seven, he was abducted by his father and taken to another country. It has taken years to forgive his parents for what happened
Sarfraz Manzoor
The Guardian, Saturday 10 December 2011
Janus Bakrawi: ‘I was so angry at my father. For the first few weeks I tried to run away.’ Photograph: Ty Stange for the Guardian=================================================
Janus Bakrawi was seven when his father, Atif, announced that he was taking him and his younger brother, Martin, to Germany on holiday. Janus had been living with his mother since his parents' divorce, and the trip to Germany seemed to be his father's attempt to spend quality time with his sons. "My mother packed our luggage and I remember going to the airport and falling asleep on the plane," Janus says. "When I woke up, I was in an old Mercedes taxi in the dead of night on a dusty road. It seemed too hot and humid to be Germany."
Janus was right. He wasn't in Germany – his father had taken the boys to Jordan where, he told them, they would now be living. "I was so angry at my father," Janus says. "For the first few weeks I tried to run away, but we were in the mountains and I was just a kid. I told my father that I wanted to go home – that I missed my friends and my mum and my school, but he told me that I should forget about that life because it was never coming back."
Janus had been living in Denmark; his mother was Polish, his father Palestinian. He would never have been born had his father not spotted a beautiful teenage girl on a train in 1968.
Atif Bakrawi was 21. Born in Palestine, his family had fled to Jordan in 1948, where Atif had grown up before moving to Denmark to work in a factory. Atif was on holiday in Poland when he noticed a girl sitting in his carriage on a Warsaw train. He tried to talk to her but she did not understand. Undeterred, Atif got off at the same stop as the girl and followed her home. She was so alarmed that she ran home.
Atif followed her and when he got to the house, the girl's mother chased him away. But the young man wasn't put off. Janus says: "The next day my dad came back to the house, but this time with gifts. He talked to the family and eventually they let him in."
Atif was introduced to Nicole and he returned several times to Poland to see her. In 1970 they were married. The following year Nicole moved to Denmark with Atif, and in December 1974 she gave birth to their first son, Janus. But the marriage soon ran into problems. "My mother was only 19 and there were lots of cultural problems," Janus says. "She was Catholic and my father was Muslim and he wanted her to behave like an Arab woman. They fought a lot."
The couple divorced, and Janus and his brother Martin ended up living with Nicole and seeing Atif every other weekend. Atif found the lack of access to his sons painful and he worried that they would forget their Arab culture. So he took the boys away. "In my father's mind he was not abducting us," Janus says, "he thought he was trying to educate us, to make sure we would know how to speak Arabic and that we had stability by living with his mother and an extended family."
How did it feel to be taken from his home? "It was the first time that I lost my trust in grownups. When my father told me that we were never going back to Denmark I remember looking at him and thinking, who is this man? He became a stranger to me."
Meanwhile, Nicole had gone to the police, who tracked Atif to Jordan. She established contact with Atif and went to visit twice. But Janus was angry because she had taken a year to get there: "I wanted to know why she had not come sooner. I had forgotten how to speak Danish so I could not even talk to her."
His mother later told him that she had been trying to get the boys back during that time.
"It was so different in Jordan because I was in a small village, not a city like Copenhagen. It was so dirty and smelly – life was really hard. I learned how to survive on the streets with lots of fighting and blood – it hardened me up."
Then, when Janus was 14, he was told to pack his things. Atif had struck a deal with the Danish authorities: in return for guaranteed immunity from prosecution, he would return his sons.
Janus went back angry with his father and alienated from his mother. "I didn't want to live with my mother, because I felt she had failed me, and I did not like my father for what he had done to me."
Worse was to follow, as a bitter and protracted custody battle between his parents led to Janus being sent to an orphanage. "I didn't see my parents much during that time, and I started really changing – I began drinking and got involved in petty crime. I also got into graffiti and hip-hop."
One legacy of spending four years away from Denmark was that he returned with an even weaker sense of identity. "I did not feel Danish," he says. "By the time I was 17, I had been harassed so much, beaten up so often because of my skin colour that, in truth, I had become a racist: I hated white people."
Janus became an angry teenager who frequently got into fights.
It was during this period that Janus first saw the film that would change his life – The Untouchables. "I saw it six times and realised what I wanted to do with my life. I enrolled at drama school and suddenly found that all the confusion and anger inside me could be used in a positive way."
Acting proved to be his saviour as he began to gain attention for his work first on stage and later on television and screen. Today, Janus is one of Denmark's most successful actors and his latest role is in The Bollywood Trip, a theatre production that has been staged to acclaimed reviews in Copenhagen and which is coming to London this month. Janus plays Haroon, an Indian man who finds himself in a Danish psychiatric unit because he believes he is a major Bollywood star while doctors claim he is suffering from delusions.
Janus remains committed to the cause of helping abducted children and he has recently finished filming a television documentary series on the subject, to be shown in Denmark in the New Year. "Making the series was an eye-opener because I met children who told me that they got nervous whenever they went anywhere new because they feared they'd be abducted – and that was exactly how I had felt returning to Denmark."
It is 25 years since Janus returned to Denmark after the abduction. He has long since forgiven his parents, who both separately attended The Bollywood Trip in Copenhagen. "When I became a father myself I realised I had to let go of the pain," he says. "I had to stop blaming my parents for what had happened, so I spoke to them both individually and I said I am willing to forgive because I need to go on with my life."
His life revolves round his 11-year-old daughter, from a marriage that didn't work out, and a busy career. His challenge, he says, is to ensure that his daughter, whose mother is Danish Moroccan, has an easier time feeling Danish than he did. "Her experience is very different from mine, and she is much more comfortably Danish than I was," he says. "I have gone through all this and found myself – I can now help my daughter.
"I think I was just born lucky," he says, "because I have this drive inside me to get the best out of life."
How does he look back now on the experience of being abducted? "It just feels like another life, but even though it was hard and not something I wanted to happen, it also gave me the experience and personality and drive that has pushed me in my life, so in some ways I am almost thankful."
Really? "It helped shape who I am," he says, "so for making me who I am today, I guess I should be grateful."
• The Bollywood Trip, starring Janus Bakrawi, is at the Southbank Centre, London SE1 12-18 December, southbankcentre.co.uk
When Janus Bakrawi was seven, he was abducted by his father and taken to another country. It has taken years to forgive his parents for what happened
Sarfraz Manzoor
The Guardian, Saturday 10 December 2011
Janus Bakrawi: ‘I was so angry at my father. For the first few weeks I tried to run away.’ Photograph: Ty Stange for the Guardian=================================================
Janus Bakrawi was seven when his father, Atif, announced that he was taking him and his younger brother, Martin, to Germany on holiday. Janus had been living with his mother since his parents' divorce, and the trip to Germany seemed to be his father's attempt to spend quality time with his sons. "My mother packed our luggage and I remember going to the airport and falling asleep on the plane," Janus says. "When I woke up, I was in an old Mercedes taxi in the dead of night on a dusty road. It seemed too hot and humid to be Germany."
Janus was right. He wasn't in Germany – his father had taken the boys to Jordan where, he told them, they would now be living. "I was so angry at my father," Janus says. "For the first few weeks I tried to run away, but we were in the mountains and I was just a kid. I told my father that I wanted to go home – that I missed my friends and my mum and my school, but he told me that I should forget about that life because it was never coming back."
Janus had been living in Denmark; his mother was Polish, his father Palestinian. He would never have been born had his father not spotted a beautiful teenage girl on a train in 1968.
Atif Bakrawi was 21. Born in Palestine, his family had fled to Jordan in 1948, where Atif had grown up before moving to Denmark to work in a factory. Atif was on holiday in Poland when he noticed a girl sitting in his carriage on a Warsaw train. He tried to talk to her but she did not understand. Undeterred, Atif got off at the same stop as the girl and followed her home. She was so alarmed that she ran home.
Atif followed her and when he got to the house, the girl's mother chased him away. But the young man wasn't put off. Janus says: "The next day my dad came back to the house, but this time with gifts. He talked to the family and eventually they let him in."
Atif was introduced to Nicole and he returned several times to Poland to see her. In 1970 they were married. The following year Nicole moved to Denmark with Atif, and in December 1974 she gave birth to their first son, Janus. But the marriage soon ran into problems. "My mother was only 19 and there were lots of cultural problems," Janus says. "She was Catholic and my father was Muslim and he wanted her to behave like an Arab woman. They fought a lot."
The couple divorced, and Janus and his brother Martin ended up living with Nicole and seeing Atif every other weekend. Atif found the lack of access to his sons painful and he worried that they would forget their Arab culture. So he took the boys away. "In my father's mind he was not abducting us," Janus says, "he thought he was trying to educate us, to make sure we would know how to speak Arabic and that we had stability by living with his mother and an extended family."
How did it feel to be taken from his home? "It was the first time that I lost my trust in grownups. When my father told me that we were never going back to Denmark I remember looking at him and thinking, who is this man? He became a stranger to me."
Meanwhile, Nicole had gone to the police, who tracked Atif to Jordan. She established contact with Atif and went to visit twice. But Janus was angry because she had taken a year to get there: "I wanted to know why she had not come sooner. I had forgotten how to speak Danish so I could not even talk to her."
His mother later told him that she had been trying to get the boys back during that time.
"It was so different in Jordan because I was in a small village, not a city like Copenhagen. It was so dirty and smelly – life was really hard. I learned how to survive on the streets with lots of fighting and blood – it hardened me up."
Then, when Janus was 14, he was told to pack his things. Atif had struck a deal with the Danish authorities: in return for guaranteed immunity from prosecution, he would return his sons.
Janus went back angry with his father and alienated from his mother. "I didn't want to live with my mother, because I felt she had failed me, and I did not like my father for what he had done to me."
Worse was to follow, as a bitter and protracted custody battle between his parents led to Janus being sent to an orphanage. "I didn't see my parents much during that time, and I started really changing – I began drinking and got involved in petty crime. I also got into graffiti and hip-hop."
One legacy of spending four years away from Denmark was that he returned with an even weaker sense of identity. "I did not feel Danish," he says. "By the time I was 17, I had been harassed so much, beaten up so often because of my skin colour that, in truth, I had become a racist: I hated white people."
Janus became an angry teenager who frequently got into fights.
It was during this period that Janus first saw the film that would change his life – The Untouchables. "I saw it six times and realised what I wanted to do with my life. I enrolled at drama school and suddenly found that all the confusion and anger inside me could be used in a positive way."
Acting proved to be his saviour as he began to gain attention for his work first on stage and later on television and screen. Today, Janus is one of Denmark's most successful actors and his latest role is in The Bollywood Trip, a theatre production that has been staged to acclaimed reviews in Copenhagen and which is coming to London this month. Janus plays Haroon, an Indian man who finds himself in a Danish psychiatric unit because he believes he is a major Bollywood star while doctors claim he is suffering from delusions.
Janus remains committed to the cause of helping abducted children and he has recently finished filming a television documentary series on the subject, to be shown in Denmark in the New Year. "Making the series was an eye-opener because I met children who told me that they got nervous whenever they went anywhere new because they feared they'd be abducted – and that was exactly how I had felt returning to Denmark."
It is 25 years since Janus returned to Denmark after the abduction. He has long since forgiven his parents, who both separately attended The Bollywood Trip in Copenhagen. "When I became a father myself I realised I had to let go of the pain," he says. "I had to stop blaming my parents for what had happened, so I spoke to them both individually and I said I am willing to forgive because I need to go on with my life."
His life revolves round his 11-year-old daughter, from a marriage that didn't work out, and a busy career. His challenge, he says, is to ensure that his daughter, whose mother is Danish Moroccan, has an easier time feeling Danish than he did. "Her experience is very different from mine, and she is much more comfortably Danish than I was," he says. "I have gone through all this and found myself – I can now help my daughter.
"I think I was just born lucky," he says, "because I have this drive inside me to get the best out of life."
How does he look back now on the experience of being abducted? "It just feels like another life, but even though it was hard and not something I wanted to happen, it also gave me the experience and personality and drive that has pushed me in my life, so in some ways I am almost thankful."
Really? "It helped shape who I am," he says, "so for making me who I am today, I guess I should be grateful."
• The Bollywood Trip, starring Janus Bakrawi, is at the Southbank Centre, London SE1 12-18 December, southbankcentre.co.uk
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