BURLINGTON — Debbie Hazen recalls turning 6 when the nuns who ran the city’s former St. Joseph’s Orphanage locked her in an attic trunk in the early 1960s.

“They told me there were bats and snakes and spiders in there that were going to get me,” she said of the dark place.

Hazen never imagined she would eventually find herself outside the orphanage dedicating a “memorial healing space” for the more than 13,000 children who lived at the Catholic facility from its opening in 1854 to its closing in 1974.

“This has been a long time coming and quite the journey for all of us,” Hazen, now 70, told a crowd of 100 fellow survivors and supporters Friday. “For some, this will complete their healing. For others, there’s still much to do.”

The North Avenue memorial, which features a sculptural arb

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