Rudolf Züger

I was born on 23 February 1942 as the second-youngest child. Before me, 4 sisters, a half-sister, and two brothers had already been born. The youngest sister followed later. My mother had been an adopted child. My father, having no vocational training, remained an unskilled labourer with various temporary casual jobs. At the time of my birth he was working as a peat-cutter in Oberägeri. I spent the first 16 months in the family circle. As the wage was nowhere near enough for such a large family, my father tried to get rid of all the children and deposit them in a children's home.

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He claimed he was concerned about a good Catholic upbringing. In the now notorious home in Fischingen he found a place for five of us. I landed first in the infant ward. It soon became apparent that the father was not paying the promised board money, and the home municipality refused to cover the costs.

In the end we landed in the poorhouse. As I was a bed-wetter, I repeatedly experienced draconian punishments there. As a small child I was forced to wash the soiled bedlinen myself, and as a punishment I was always locked in the stable with the big black sow. I suffered agonies of fear. I was frequently sat on a pot in the evening, threatened, and then forgotten, so that I often never got to bed all night. Beatings were also not spared. In winter I was banished inadequately dressed to the chicken yard. A passer-by found me there, brought me out, and took me in a half-frozen state to the hospital in Lachen.

After that I was taken to St Josefsheim in Bremgarten. The mother superior there was kind to us children. But the nun on the ward was ill-disposed towards me and harassed me. She gave me shoes that were too small, which left me with sores from the walking. Because a fellow resident pushed me into her during a shared shower, she flew into a fury, dragged me to the bathroom on the upper floor, threw me into ice-cold water, and subjected me to waterboarding. I was in shock and afterwards wanted to throw myself from the roof of the home to put an end to the misery. Another nun who recognised my intention lured me back to safety through a fellow resident who was friendly towards me and the offer of an apple. Under a false promise of a day trip, I was taken back to Fischingen the next day without knowing what was happening. I remained there from year 4 until I left school.

In the guardian's reports, I was classified year after year as mentally deficient, burdened with poor capacities, lazy, and quick-tempered. Here too there was a humiliating parade before the other inmates for bed-wetting, followed always by various cleaning and domestic duties as punishment. I had actually wanted to become a priest or a nurse. My guardian cited character defects and lack of intelligence as objections. I was therefore placed with a farmer in Ruswil

With this farmer, who employed two indentured children in addition to his own two children, the drudgery started again. At 4 a.m. I had to go out for pasturing. The toil usually continued until 10 or 11 in the evening. The food I received was the same as the farm dog's. On top of this, the farmer's wife claimed I had physically attacked her. In this renewed misery, too intimidated to defend myself, the thought of suicide came to me for a second time. I was then placed as a labourer with a foster family in Beromünster. In this one-man operation for pottery, stove and chimney construction, and floor-laying work, I was further exploited and called upon beyond normal working hours for numerous additional tasks in the house, caring for chickens and rabbits, garden work, and gravedigging services. At least I sat at the family table, received the same food, and was in some sense a member of the family.

After three years the welfare officer appeared one day and suggested I could do a nursing apprenticeship. The ulterior motive was to gain a cheap servant for the assigned care home. There I was also sexually abused by the office boy. One day my third-eldest sister called and invited me to her wedding. I was forbidden to attend. After a possible cookery apprenticeship also fell through, with the help of a colleague I found my parents and returned to them. But hell broke loose again there. My father worked against me, sabotaged various job positions for me, and one day threw me out again. I applied for the advertised position of big cat keeper at the Knie circus and was hired, even though I had been listed as a wanted person by the guardianship authority. I was honest and testified that I had no fear of wild animals – of authorities and bipeds, yes. There I was able to work for two seasons.

Because my boss moved to Italy with his animals for a new engagement, I was unable to go with him due to my lack of papers and the still-active wanted notice. For a short time I was again placed with a farmer. Despite the guardian's initial resistance, I managed in the end to free myself from that constraint permanently. Later, on my own initiative, I completed nursing training as well as a printing apprenticeship. What I will never forgive my guardian for is that in several emergency situations he repeatedly denied me emergency medical care. I still suffer from the resulting health and physical deficiencies today. I will also never forgive him for trying to have me admitted to the psychiatric clinic where he had already registered me, shortly before my discharge from guardianship.