This is FRESH air.
I'm Terry Gross.
One night when my guest Rich Benjamin's mother was staying over at his Brooklyn apartment,
he awoke to her screaming, please don't kill me.
Please don't kill me.
She was having a nightmare.
Here's the backstory.
Her father, Rich Benjamin's grandfather,
was appointed president of Haiti by a temporary government in 1957.
But 19 days after taking office, he was overthrown by a military couple.
Soldiers with submachine guns stormed into a cabinet meeting,
took him away and gave him a letter of resignation to sign.
His wife was also kidnapped by soldiers.
They were both ejected and sent to the U.S. soldiers also came for the president's children,
including Benjamin's mother, who was 13 at the time.
The children were taken to barracks where his mother was raped.
She never got over the terror of that day.
Through her aunt's negotiations with the military government,
she was able to get out of confinement and go to New York, where she was reunited with her parents.
The family never really talked about the coup and the trauma.