My most poignant keepsake

Warning, this is a rant against the inhumane treatment of refugee children in the USA at the moment  !

Following up on last week's Tiny Tuesday theme of favourite souvenirs/keepsakes I'm showing the most poignant keepsake I have (I've Blipped it before  not that long ago and the original of this image today is in the extras).
This is a self-made brooch, a very simple wooden shape with a glued safety pin at the back, in a heart/leaf shape with the initials PG. It was made for my grandmother in 1942 in a Japanese concentration camp for civil prisoners of war on Java, made by a fellow prisoner of war, maybe for a birthday or for St Nicholas/Christmas. This was a prisoner of war camp for women and young children. Boys could stay with their mothers until they were 10, then they were sent to camps for men, because they were deemed men by their captors. My father was one of those children, first he saw the atrocities done to women by the captors for two years, then he was sent to a men's camp where the young boys were very much left to fend for them selves. When my grandmother and my father were separated my grandmother lost most of her will to live, she didn't know where her husband was or whether he was still alive and now the same applied to her son. She decided to become a pallbearer and nurse in the camp, not caring whether she would live or die herself. Imagine being a parent in such a situation ...

By a stroke of luck the whole family did survive  the ordeals of the separate camps and they were re-united, but the physical and mental scars they all wore would affect their further lives and the lives of those dear and near to them. Now this happened more than 70 years ago in a war situation and we all know that horrible things happen in wars, the way humans treat other humans can be so incredibly cruel.

But unless Mr Trump and his government have decided they are at war with the rest of the world I can not think of a single justified reason why refugee/asylum seeking parents and especially children are treated the way they are treated right now. Children , even very young children, separated from their parents, caged, locked up in detention camps with people who are not allowed to show any real care? What have you become, land of the free? What are you going to do with these poor children? Do you know the consequences of these kind of circumstances on the child's mental and physical state?

I know there is a refugee/immigration crisis everywhere in the world and I do know that terrible situations occur everywhere, but this occurring on purpose in a civilised country which wants to show its greatness, if we are to believe the US President , is so utterly shameful and horrible.

Edited: I was glad to see a former President's spouse and a Republican at that wrote this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/laura-bush-separating-children-from-their-parents-at-the-border-breaks-my-heart/2018/06/17/f2df517a-7287-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html?