From hell to heaven passing through bunga bunga. Ania Goledzinowska: "By faith I have found happiness"

Other languages: English, Italiano

By Benedetta Sangirardi, affaritaliani.it

Ania has a rented house in Milano. It is colorful and cozy. When you enter, you have the impression of a lively, very lively apartment. It is not one of those houses from which you get out early in the morning just to come back late at night. Ania Goledzinowska, 28, a Polish model, intercepted in the Ruby-gate investigation for the Silvio Berlusconi‘s "Bunga Bunga" nights, engaged to Paolo Beretta (Silvio Berlusconi’s nephew) is a very sweet girl. She welcomes me in a sleeveless shirt and tracksuit, her computer turned on the sofa. Blonde and blue eyes she is involved in writing her second book "a thriller with religious overtones". Far different from her first "With the eyes of a child" ("Con Occhi Di Bambina", published by Piemme Edizione), among the 100 best-selling books in Italy (81st place).

A book, not for all, "melts" even the most cynical souls, those who deal daily with crime news. It is a young girl s terrible story, one with a life made of abuses (raped at 8 by her mother’s partner), of drugs (at early 13), of sex. In short, a life of a "not lived" childhood in Poland, with an absent mother and an early disappeared father, and with a sister "I hated with all my heart". It is a story that makes you cry, because although through a book, it is the story difficult to bear, the story of a small child victim of violence that wanders around Warsaw streets looking for happiness, peace, and joy of living.

But Ania, instead of the enchanted castle she had dreamed of, instead of dolls and games, has found on her way the worst things one can come across. Unspeakable. And any time she has tried to get up, Ania has fallen down again. Alone, after years of drugs, at 16 she catches the chance to come to Italy and realize her dream: fashion, performances. But this is the beginning of a new nightmare. She is forced to live in a prison-house in Torino and to work at nights. She trusts a man, a real monster, who rapes her. She can’t stand it anymore and decides to escape from her exploiters. The light gets on when she meets a young man, plans her escape and succeeds in this perilous venture. With great hope, she goes straight towards her dream. She will be disappointed. Trapped into Milano s high society, with cocaine from morning till night, pubs, VIP and sex. A dead end street. That world of Milano which everyone dreams of and envy is in reality a life of loneliness, fiction, so that "when you get back home and look at your address book, you don’t know who to phone to."

This hell ends two years ago, when thanks to Paolo Brosio she decides to go to Medjugorje. Finally a path which promises a different future, a clean future, a true hope. The showgirl is "ravished" by this small village in Bosnia Herzegovina. The enchanted castle, which she has always dreamt of, is being finally constructed. It is in scaffolding, and Ania is working every day even with extra shifts over to complete her work which leads towards faith, happiness and her new life. And there are the "crosses" like in each spiritual path. Like in the "Bunga Bunga" story.

The interceptions, the "monster" in front page. Ania is intercepted last January while talking on the phone with Ruby Rubacuori. She advised her to keep far away from Lele Mora who has sent her as a "package" to Palace Grazioli as a present to the president of the council. Ania is involved in the inquiry and for days is associated with the girls of Olgettina street, who are weekly in Arcore parties. But the model is now stronger and manages to get out of it. The fragility of a girl without childhood and with a terrible past now leads her not to go out of home for about one year except with her boyfriend. Yet the strength of her soul reads in her eyes. And her hard words (including bad words) are coming out with all the force when she thinks about the last paedophilia case, that one of don Seppia.


You are bravely demanding a law in order to castrate both paedophiles and rapers. In your book you tell about two abuses. One suffered at 8 by your mother’s partner and another at 16 when you have been raped by a man you have trusted...

"I have been able during years to forgive those who have harmed me. But I firmly believe that offence should be punished. Whether it is done by a priest or not. If I think about those children who have had to suffer what I suffered, I feel anger, which is very difficult to explain and every time I feel like crying. In the Gospel it is written (Mark, chapter 9, verse 42): "and who has upset one of these children who believe, for him it would be better to have his neck tied with a millstone and to be thrown into the sea". Today I pray for these people because, and again I quote Jesus, "they don’t know what they do". The rotten apples are everywhere, but this doesn‘t mean that it should not be punished."

What type of law do you suggest?

"A period of recovery, at first. But later, if it does not work, we must stop them somehow ..."

The first part of your book is really shocking. A child without games, without smile, raped, who at 13 is already "over dosed" with heroin.

"My sister has started with heroin at 11, and at 25 she hasn’t stopped yet. She is trying to get out of it. I already used drugs myself at 13, and I did not have a childhood. Even today when I enter a children’s shop, I would like to buy everything, dolls, soft toys. I have never had anything. I felt an unwanted child. I went out, walked around uncontrolled and took drugs. My mother was non existent."

Did you hate her for her absence? She has abandoned you and has placed you in your uncles’ care. A fragile woman, who has become more fragile after your father’s death.

"Yes, it was pure hate.  If she had died, nothing would have changed for me. I had no feeling. Even more so when my sister was born and when at 8 years old my father died and my mother got engaged with the man who has raped me. But there is something worse. Sometime ago I went back to Poland and my mother has confessed to me that "that monster" has raped my sister too. It is awful; she was only 4-5 years old.  I have always hated my sister, thinking that she was the source of my unhappiness. But on the contrary ..."

Today what is your relationship with your family?

"It is OK both with my mother and with my sister. I am trying to help Natalia (sister) who has been getting methadone for one year to get out of the heroin tunnel. Her weight has increased of 30 kg, and I feel guilty for my past life. When we were children, she was always after me and wanted to come out with me and I refused; I treated her badly, I hated her. Anyway, you can’t go back."

Drug use when you are so little must be really dreadful. You were just a child.

"You must not believe it is a distant reality happening just in Poland or in poor countries. It happens in Italy too. I think of Naples, of Sicily, and of course of those small children in Genova seduced by don Riccardo. Poor families where children at 12 have sex and find drugs. These are real problems we pretend not to see. We just ignore them, but unfortunately they absolutely do exist."

How old were you when you had your first sexual experience?

"At 14. I gave my first kiss to a Polish boy who later on has beaten his girlfriend to death and thrown her into a rubbish container. (Ania gets the paper and shows me the young man’s photo arrested in the front page of a Polish newspaper)."

At 16 she realizes her dream to come to Italy. But it turns to be a real nightmare. Here, in order to become a model you are closed up in a house in Torino together with other girls, all of them very young.

(She gets another Polish paper which tells about a group of arrested exploiters who used to bring girls to Italy and points to one: "This is the man").

"The only time we were allowed to go out was during the night. We got back at the house at 5-6am, and woke up at 3pm, we ate. We always went out with him (the exploiter). We were never alone."

Have you ever been able to rebel?

"There were no possibilities at all. I was without any documents. These people are cunning, they hold you. They tell you that if you do something, they will directly go to your family members and kill them. And you are afraid to do anything ..."

One evening at the pub you trusted a man ... But he was the wrong one.

"Yes, I thought he might rescue me and take me away. Instead, he raped me in his car. I was 16."

How did your life change since then?

"Since then I have not been able to have sexual intercourse with men except under alcohol effect."

Later "the guardian angel" comes. One night you decide to fly away from your home-prison. A young man helps you.

"I have never seen him again. It was a crazy night and I was so scared. But I did it and I succeeded."

What news do you have about the girls who were with you?

"Three of them have been able to run away after I did. But there were also those who liked this situation. They earned much more than they did in their own countries. And they were happy about the possibility to buy a house. But I had not come to Italy for those same reasons."

From that cursed night you have moved to another night of a higher level where no one forced you to have sexual intercourse.

"Yes, but I was aware it was just an interval, and I had to be contented with it; I had no documents and I did not want to go back to Poland. I still trusted my dream."

In your life there is the continuous presence of men. Your dad, then the young man who rescues you, Marco your boyfriend, the man you got married to fictitiously to get the residence permit, the one who made you reach Milano. In your life, there is no female figure, a woman friend.

"I had never thought of it. In my life there have been no women in my path. They are envious, they judge you very easily without knowing you, I don’t trust women. They have got prejudices. I feel at ease and have many male friends. In these last years I have had many male and female "VIP" friends. When they have heard of my book they have phoned me really worried saying: "Ania, maybe they’ll connect us to your drug troubles and will involve us in them?"

Let’s enter the VIP society. You get to Milano and start the "live it up". Pubs, parties, the show society, football players. And when you think you are out, you fall down again. Cocaine becomes your "daily bread".

"It is an upsetting world, awful. I thought that Marco, an incredibly rich young man who supported me for the first years and who I loved, would have rescued me. Quite the contrary he has ruined me."

Can you tell us what a day looked like for you at this time?

"Marco always left me money, I was full of money; I had anything I wanted. We used cocaine up to 10 a.m. Then he went to work, I don’t know how he could work. I got up at 15 myself, went out shopping and buying dresses. In the evening we always had dinners and parties with friends, we drunk and used cocaine every day."

Did you ever get bored?

"In that very moment I didn’t think about that. I was deeply enamored of this man, I had lost my head."

And later ...

"Drug started to get me bored. It had no effect on me. I tried to help Marco get out of cocaine. But he refused to. And we grew apart. And things got worse. When we parted from each other, I started to go out with other friends of the show society and my drugs consumption started to increase instead of decreasing. I did all and over all. Till one night ..."

What happened?

"I had a dream, or at least I think it was a dream. A man with a beard talked to me but I couldn’t hear what he said. But he looked at me and I understood that figure would have changed my life."

The high society is made of money, parties, wealthy people. You have been there for so many years in those groups. What is your idea about them?

"Just appearance; the VIP parties you read of in the papers are all false. All of it is false. You wear a mask and participate to a party where everything is appearance. Later you get home, open your diary and you don’t know who to phone to. All those people are alone. Friendship is impossible, because all of them they jostle to be in a program, to be in TV shows."

Today what type of relation do you have with sex?

"I had stories with famous people I have never mentioned about, particularly one of a certain evening. It is part of that vicious circle: I always declare in my life that I have done the worst a human being can do. Just two things haven‘t I done: I have never killed anybody, and I have never sold myself. Last year I made a promise to myself and since then I have not had any sexual intercourse."

One day you have engaged with the singer Baccini.

"Thanks to him I have moved away from drugs. And my new life has begun."

Up to Paolo Brosio...

"We have never had any relation. We have helped each other so much. And thanks to him I went to Medjugorje one year ago. And there I converted. I have understood that evil is everywhere and so each day you do have to work hard to keep him far."

Are you afraid of falling back again in your past life?

"Sometimes yes. For one year I have not gone out from my home. And soon I’ll go back to Medjugorje again, it is the only place where I feel actually peaceful. I want to get there and find out what to look for in my life. I don’t know whether I want a family or if I prefer to help the others. I’ll go there and I will know what to do."

And what does your partner, Paolo Beretta, Berlusconi’s nephew, think of it?"

"We are still together and we live just like two fiancés, but we don’t have sex and he accepts it. It is my fear. Today going to bed with a man means for me to get dirty, and this feeling is due to my past life. Paolo has not obliged me to."

How long have you known him?

"For three years. I supported him when he lost his mother (Maria Antonietta Berlusconi, premier’s sister). And at the time we have lived together already for one year."

Beretta has defended you in these last months. You have been involved in Ruby-gate inquiry because of an interception as you were talking to Ruby on the phone. Your name has appeared in all the papers.

"I have never met Ruby. We met on Facebook at the beginning of 2010. Later we phoned each other many times from October when the case burst out and up to January. The phone call has obviously been intercepted but has never been published in all its parts."

What did you say during this phone call?

"I advised Ruby to be careful of Lele Mora and to keep far from him. But she answered: "He is the only one to help me."

Why did you suggest her to get far from Mora?

"I have worked for him for two years. He has been my agent. I was in some shows, sponsoring, programs. But he never let me go further."

What kind of man is he?

"It is better for me to keep silent."

Has he ever proposed you to get into parties at Silvio Berlusconi’s home?

"He has actually sent me to a premier’s party without informing me about it."

Do you refer to the premier’s birthday in 2008?

"Yes. He told me: ‚Ania, there is this chance, they pay a lot. Your task is just to come out from the parcel and sing Happy Birthday. I was very happy because I was supposed to be paid quite well. I got on the plane for Rome and a car from the airport brought me into a building where literally they "wrapped" me. When I got out of the package I was in front of Berlusconi. I was his birthday’s present."

And later how did the party go on?

"We danced together, he paid a lot of compliments to me, we had dinner, danced and then we went to sleep."

Did you sleep there?

"Yes."

Was it the only occasion for you to participate at the premier’s house?

"Yes. Other times I have been to Arcore or to others’ premier residences. I have been there with Paolo."

Now you have stopped your business with Mora. Which has been the determining factor that leaded you to decide that?

"One evening he invited me to a dinner where he himself was supposed to be with some other people. They were looking for a new image for a famous Italian beer. I went there and Lele was not in. Those men had nothing to do with the beer. One of them was a lawyer and another one a notary from Napoli. At the end of the evening one of them put his hand on my leg to touch me and said: ‚Lele told us that for anything we need we can rely on you‘. I jumped, called Mora and shouted just as if I was mad. From that time on I haven‘t worked for him any more."

Do you believe the other girls of the same "society" on the contrary like this lifestyle?

"Sure. Lele Mora himself said that when he stops working he will write a book and tell the truth about these girls."

Do you feel like giving your opinion on them?

"I know some of them and everyone knows they were in Milano to become escorts. I really don’t know what they did inside the premier’s home. Actually they went there for money. Interceptions have evidences. But I want to add something."

Please...

"Women have been rioting in the squares against Berlusconi for their dignity. But those who have not had respect or have damaged our dignity are just the ones who sell themselves so badly. I don’t judge because with your body you can do whatever you like. Let us rather think of that woman who is obliged to sell her body. These are the cases we must deal with."

How do you live today?

"Quite badly. This is not my house, it is the house of a dear friend. I pay a very low rent. And the money I gain through small works, like events, is scarcely enough to live. I had to leave my PR work in the disco when my book came out. I could not deal with faith and at the same time be there to serve bottles in the private clubs."

Have you ever thought of looking for another job?

"I like writing so much. I am writing my second book."

Have you ever refused a proposal since this new life of yours, after your conversion?

"When one year ago I was in Medjugorje, my guide told me: ‚When you go back to Milano you’ll get a proposal very difficult to refuse because the devil is always present.‘ As soon as I went back to Italy they asked me to pose undressed for a magazine; they would give me an enormous quantity of money. I refused. It was very difficult. Nevertheless I did refuse it."

Which has been the very beginning for the new Ania?

"My life has changed since one year ago. Medjugorje has been an overturning experience for me. I got there with my heart open and it has been unbelievable. That travel has led me to rediscover myself. I have found confidence. And now I am longing to get back there again because in Medjugorje I feel really happy."

Would you like to tell anything to those girls who have been raped or who have entered drug nightmare?

"From any part of the world and from any social level you come from, if you have a dream in your life you can realize it. Otherwise we would not be allowed to dream."



Translation © www.medjugorje.ws

 

For God to live in your hearts, you must love.

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