Witnesses

Recollections

Voices of those affected

Witnesses report first-hand - so that this history is not forgotten.

David Gogniat

I was born on 19 January 1939 at the Berne Women's Hospital as an illegitimate child. My biological father was already divorced from his first wife at the time. From that marriage I have a half-sister. After I obtained my records…

Charles Probst

As a toddler, barely a year old, Jean was placed with foster parents and a few years later placed as a contract child with a farming family. He did not see his biological mother again until he was 11, but could not return to her and her family. Despite…

Rita Soltermann

I was born on 31 December 1938 in Burgdorf. My mother was a housewife, my father worked as a paver, employed by the town of Burgdorf. Unfortunately this work, which was certainly very hard, was not good for his health…

Rudolf Züger

I was born on 23 February 1942 as the second youngest child. Before me, 4 sisters, one half-sister and two brothers had already come into the world. Later the youngest sister followed. My mother was an adopted child. My father…

Paul Schwarz

Paul Schwarz was placed as a contract child by the guardianship authority in 1972–76 with dreadful farming people in the municipality of Belp because of his parents' divorce. It is almost unbelievable what he had to endure and experience. Although highly intelligent, he…

Hugo Zingg

Hugo Zingg was born in 1936 in the Matte district of Berne into a working-class family. His father was a mechanic. He spent his early childhood years until shortly before starting school in a so-called children's home in Kleindietwil in the Oberaargau. He…

Armin Leuenberger

I was born on 13 October 1945 at the Tiefenau Hospital in Berne. My biological parents were unmarried and did not live together. I was given my father's name, Armin Bächli. My mother had a guardian. In 1947 I too was…

Kurt Gäggeler

I was born on 3 November 1951 in Berne. The first year of my life in Berne was almost normal except for a comminuted fracture of the nose in the playpen that was left without medical examination. My father worked at the city of Berne's building authority and was…

Elisabeth Marti

I was born in 1933 as the second eldest in Lützelflüh (BE). In the end there were four of us children. I was able to stay with my mother for the first year. In 1937 my father died of blood poisoning. Three of us siblings were placed with…

Uschi Waser

I was born on 13 December 1952 in Rüti in the canton of Zurich. The records state that I was first placed with a foster family and then in the Friedheim children's home, also in Rüti. As the daughter of a Yenish woman (as the Travellers were called in…

Herbert Keller

I was born on 26 August 1946 at the infant home in Herrliberg ZH and was given my mother's family name, Keller, as my father was allegedly unknown. In the records I later found a letter from my mother in which she wrote that she…

Boris Scavezzon

I was born in Zurich in 1964. My parents, both from northern Italy, came to Switzerland in the mid-1950s and met and fell in love here. The four of us lived in a…

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