Survivors of the Stolen Generations have gathered for an emotional Sorry Day commemorative reunion on Gadigal Country, Sydney for a day of healing and connection ahead of Reconciliation Week.
Under the powers of the New South Wales Aborigines Protection Act 1909, hundreds of girls were stolen from their families and placed in Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls.
"We weren't told anything. Everything was secret at Cootamundra Girls Home," former resident Ruth Hawkins McKenzie told the ABC at the event, which was organised by the Cootamundra Girls Aboriginal Corporation.
"I've missed out on a lot; consequently our family has missed out on a lot."
Ms Hawkins McKenzie was taken from her parents at La Perouse, south of Sydney, along with her older sister, but they were kept separated at the facility commonly known as Coota Girls Home.
They eventually found each other using Link-Up, a service to help Stolen Generations survivors find their lost families.
"After 30 years through Link-Up, I meet up with my sister," she said.
"And I said, 'Well, what's Link-Up all about? And who's this woman?' Well, this is my sister."
In the period between 1912 and 1969, girls were trained at the institution to work as domestic servants for non-Indigenous households, usually in rural areas.
"They were trying to indoctrinate us," said Ms Hawkins McKenzie's older sister Jean Carter McKenzie, who is believed to be the oldest Coota Girls survivor at the age of 90.
"We were told not to go near Aboriginal men. We weren't allowed to speak our language."
With the support from survivors of the Kinchela Boys Home, elders celebrated their resistance to assimilation policies which robbed them of family, language, and belonging.
The sisters described Saturday's reunion as cathartic.
"This is our original way of healing. We don't seek out healing from doctors and psychologists and things like that," Ms Carter McKenzie said.
"We go back to our spiritual way."
Against the backdrop of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House, the event's MC, Bundjalung Widjabul-Wiabul woman Nessa Turnbull-Roberts, a survivor of out-of-home care, condemned the government policies that sought to assimilate First Nations people at the time.
"This nation is built on a history of racially charged violence and invasion that has impacted our families and communities, and one of the biggest ways that they did that was by displacing our families and children," Ms Turnbull-Roberts said.
"Many of our elders in community, particularly our matriarchs and Black women, ended up in Cootamundra Girls Home.
"This event is so special because it gives our survivors a time to come together, share and make this day about them."
Although the Protection Acts were in place into the 1970s, many First Nations people are still searching for lost parents and siblings.
"The reality is they failed [to assimilate us] because we get to stand here today and honour the survivors," Ms Turnbull-Roberts said.
"But we need to really reflect on who didn't survive, as well."
The first National Sorry Day was held 25 years ago, commemorating one year since the Bringing Them Home report was tabled in federal parliament. That report found the forced removal of Indigenous children caused lifelong impacts on Stolen Generations survivors and families.
Ten years later, in February 2008, then-prime minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology on the floor of parliament.
"That grief will never leave us," explained Ms Carter McKenzie.
"And we have to laugh and laugh and joke about things, but underneath it all, there's this grief that will lie there until we go to our dreaming time."
