They lived in children's homes or were taken away from their mothers immediately after birth: 20,000 Chilean children were adopted to Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, mostly illegally. For the victims, the consequences are traumatic, to this day.
"My adoptive mother and father told me that my biological mother allegedly left me in the hospital and fled to Argentina," reports Ruth Corinna Stein. "Then I was taken to various foster families, put in the children's home in La Unión, from where I was adopted."
The place where Ruth Corinna Stein lives seems like a paradox to her story: Homberg (Efze) in North Hesse is pure idyll. A gentle, hilly landscape envelops the well-preserved medieval town, in which half-timbered houses are lined up.
The 36-year-old can be called by her middle name Corinna. Long, dark hair frames her friendly face. She was adopted from southern Chile when she was three years old. She learned that from her adoptive father when she was six, she recalls. "We were sitting in his office or in her office, in any case we were sitting in one of those rooms, and then he suddenly said to me: Listen, we're not your real parents, there's your biological mother, who is you didn't want to, and that's all I know. I thought so, they were white, I was always completely brown, and people always questioned who your mum and dad are. And then someone once brought a stupid saying about you don't belong here."
Brought to Germany at the age of seven