When Maria Lundberg Ström's mother and father learned that the biological parents demanded their daughter back, it was the beginning of one of history's worst adoption scandals. It turned out that Maria had been stolen from her home in Seoul. Her new Swedish parents became desperate.
FJung Yoon Huh's life in Sweden began on 18 February 1968 at Arlanda. It was the day when her expectant adoptive parents, Ulla and Stig, received their adopted child from Korea.
They were a childless couple in their 40s who had longed to start a family, but did not succeed. The 2.5-year-old Korean girl was received with open arms. They called her Mary.
The girl was precocious for her age. In fact, she was four years old. But about that and about Mary's real background, they knew nothing. They thought she was orphaned.
Maria Lundberg Ström, who is now 56 years old, agrees that her story is exceptional. Few adoptees find their biological parents. In her case, on the contrary, it was the biological parents who, after two years of searching, found their lost daughter. Because she was anything but poor and orphaned, she came from a wealthy entrepreneurial family in Seoul.