In his own words, 65-year-old Joseph Marijancevic is an old man who suffered as a child and is now hurtling towards death.
His parents escaped the former Yugoslavia when he was a toddler but it was when he ended up as a ward of the state in Victoria's Turana youth centre that his real suffering began.
Mr Marijancevic was raped by a youth officer in a broom closet at Turana and by another "screw".
An older boy who also abused him warned him to keep quiet. "It's what we do," the boy told him. "I'll look after you and keep you safe."
Mr Marijancevic now hopes telling his story to the child abuse royal commission will prevent others from going through the same experience.
"I believe that you are in a position where you can save perhaps hundreds of lives ... from suffering what I went through and what certainly others went through in front of me," he told Justice Jennifer Coate.
"Although I am terrified, I committed myself to giving the narrative of my trauma and humiliation in the hope that the true account of my experience will bring about change, which may just stop this sort of thing from ever happening again.
"I hope that my account will force politicians to protect these vulnerable children who are placed in institutions and who are totally dependent on them for care."
Norman Latham, 69, still has nightmares about what happened to him at Turana. He has alleged two senior "screws" abused him. One has died and the case against the second has been dropped.
"Although I am terrified, I committed myself to giving the narrative of my trauma and humiliation in the hope that the true account of my experience will bring about change..."
Mr Latham said it was extremely hard being the first victim to give evidence to the public hearing focused on abuse in three Victorian state-run youth centres, but he hoped it would give others courage to have their say.
"I wanted to get the truth out there and to get justice more so than anything, and hopefully to prevent it from happening to any other children in the future, and to try and get closure or relief from letting it out and ... getting the perpetrator - hopefully other victims come forward," he said.
