Content note: This article discusses child abuse, family separation, familicide and a brief mention of suicide.
A new book by author Paige Towers documents how a Creswell, Oregon, couple spent decades coercing Korean mothers into surrendering their children, kidnapping kids off streets and fabricating records to make children with living families appear to be orphans available for adoption overseas.
"What They Stole: A Familicide Rooted in Intercountry Adoption," published May 26 by the University of Iowa Press, traces the history of Harry and Bertha Holt, first cousins from the Midwest who married and settled in Creswell. '
Their Holt Adoption Program, founded in the 1950s, grew into Holt International, now described as the world's largest adoption agency. Between 1953 and 2019, an estimated 150,000 Korean children were adopted by families in the United States and another 50,000 were sent to Europe.
The book's Oregon roots carry particular weight in Beaverton, where Asian residents make up 11.2% of the city's nearly 98,000 people and Washington County's Asian population grew 51% between 2010 and 2020, according to U.S. Census data.
The Vose neighborhood's Allen Boulevard corridor is home to Korean restaurants and shops, and the city hosts Korean cultural programming year-round, including regular Korean Storytime events at the Beaverton City Library.
How it worked
According to OPB's reporting on the book, published Sunday, Aug. 23, Harry Holt directed staff to create false birth records showing children as orphans available for adoption, whether or not they actually were. When a baby died before being sent overseas, the Holts assigned a similarly aged child that dead baby's paperwork to avoid losing already-completed work.
Children died in the Holts' care, too.
Per Bertha Holt's own reports, two children a week were dying at their children's center in Korea because the facility had no doctors on staff and eventually fired most of its nurses. Other children died aboard an unpressurized jet the Holts used for years to transport kids to the United States.
Towers, a Bellingham, Washington, author, was drawn to the Holt story after researching a 2008 familicide in Iowa City. Steven Sueppel, a bank vice president facing criminal charges for embezzling more than $500,000, killed his wife Sheryl, their four adopted Korean children and himself. The Sueppels had adopted through Holt International.
"Unfortunately, Ethan, Seth, Mira, and Eleanor join a large group of children who have been murdered by their adoptive families, including a large group of Korean children who have been murdered by their adopted families," Towers said in the OPB/KUOW interview published Sunday, Aug. 23. "But the Holts, as far as I found, there was never any reckoning with that reality. They refused to recognize that they had placed these children without enough investigation first. And that to me is their legacy."
A policy gap that persists
The book also raises a lesser-known issue: until 2000, children adopted from Korea did not automatically become U.S. citizens, and the policy was not retroactive. Some adults adopted before that year may still lack citizenship and face deportation risk, according to Prism Reports.
Upcoming Korean community events in Beaverton
- Korean Thanksgiving Chuseok Festival: Saturday, Sept. 26, in Beaverton.
If you are having suicidal thoughts, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
