"I saw my American father for the first time a week before my wedding..."

"I was born in 1946 as a so-called child of the occupation. I didn't know my father. The only thing my mother had told me was that he was an American soldier and he had to go back to America. He just put it out of his mind and never got in contact with us again.

Then, before our wedding my fiancé took up the search for him. And a week before the ceremony, I saw my father for the first time at the airport in Zürich-Klothen. We had agreed that he would hold a newspaper in his hand so that I would know it was him. So there we were, my husband and I, standing in Klothen and waiting for the man who is supposed to have been my father. And then I saw him and he waved to me - and it was as though nothing happened. There was simply a strange man standing in front of me, a man whom I was then seeing for the first time.

Little by little, we began to get closer to each other - during long walks together and conversations. And then, gradually feelings and something like a sense of empathy began to emerge. My father was very moved by the fact that he had a child. He cried quite a lot and he was really sorry that so many years had gone by and we had always been apart.

I'm sorry to say that we've lost touch with each other again."

Sonja B., born in 1946 as a so-called Ami child (Boltzmann-Institut/Steinocher-Fonds Interview Archive, Salzburg)