Gaby did not grow up with her big brother Detlef because she had another baby shortly after her birth reversed would. A profound mistake that the two of them had to correct themselves much later.
“I can’t change the past anymore”
Gaby was born on November 21, 1959 in a hospital in North Rhine-Westphalia and was swapped with Susanne* in the nursery.
After my mother gave birth and held me for the first time, a nun took me to the nursery. At that time, babies were only brought to mothers for breastfeeding – and taken away immediately. When my mother was put in her arms the next day a newborn baby with black hair, she said, I know that from stories: ‘That’s not my child!’ – ‘Yes, of course it is’, replied the nun. She allowed no contradiction.
The woman in whose arms I was laid to breastfeed also wondered where all the black hair went overnight. The nun just said: dropped out, overnight, that happens!
As a mother of two children, I know that right after birth you are less controlled by the mind and more by hormonal fog. Added to this is the fact that both my mothers accepted it– as women back then just accepted almost everything – what the authorities drummed into them. As medically improbable as the statement about the hair falling out might be, Google didn’t exist back then.
I don’t blame either of my mothers, both of them only suspected the swap at first, but didn’t know for sure. I think mothers accept, love and care for babies, whether they are their own flesh and blood or not. Both of my mothers, the one who raised me and the one who gave birth to me, came to terms with their dark premonitions, which must have been terrible for them. And it became a certainty for me only late.
Finally certainty
The truth had come to me in small steps. In the form of aunts who said at my communion: ‘You don’t belong in our family!’ Or a kiosk owner from whom I bought ice cream together with Rudi*, my non-biological brother, and who then said to Rudi: ‘Susanne was just here, you look like twins!’ My youth was full of such moments.
Years later, my biological brother Detlef was the one who approached me with open arms, by then we were grown up and at our father’s funeral, whom I wasn’t really allowed to get to know anymore. we cried A moment when everyone saw that we belong together – as brother and sister. So I had to be 36 years old before I really recognized the mistake of my life and was able to officially clear it up shortly afterwards with the help of a first saliva test. When I saw the result in black and white in front of me, I drove to see her, the woman from the neighborhood who, to me, was first and foremost Susanne’s mother. We grew up only 200 meters apart. I remember leaning my bike against the hedge by the fence, my heart pounding as I walked toward the garden gate. I called her, my biological mother, who liked me quite well as the girl next door. She stood in her garden without a word. I hadn’t seen her for a few years, but she was almost the same, still light blonde, blue-eyed, just like me. I asked, ‘Do you know why I’m here?’ She looked at me for a long time, finally sighed: ‘Yes.’
But that moment has changed nothing. It wasn’t a soap opera, we didn’t hug, we didn’t cry. Today I know that my biological mother loved her adopted child Susanne more than me. I think that is okay. But Detlef is still not willing to forgive her for this silence, not even posthumously. To me, the mother who raised me will always be ‘the mom’, although it went badly for me. I had to leave school, even though I was good, I had to earn money because my father wanted it that way – my mother, i.e. Mama, had no courage and no opinion.
As war children, our parents belong to the generation that sweeps pain and taboos under the table. ‘What are people supposed to say about a family with a swapped child? Are they laughing at us?’ They wouldn’t have gotten over that stigma. But Detlef and I broke the silence together. That welded us together. We found each other late, but haven’t let go since then, we go on vacation together, we still talk about our ‘stolen’ childhood. Detlef’s wife always says: Gaby, you’re much too mild in your assessment of this matter. But why should I grieve over something that can no longer be changed? It’s OK. I have found my peace.”
“My mother developed a bizarre way of dealing with it”
Detlef grew up in his biological family and was seven years old when Susanne and not Gaby came into the family as a sister.
For the first time I saw my sister, or whoever I thought was her, as a wrapped bundle behind a pane of glass. She had black hair and was crying. My mother later told me that a neighbor who lived a few houses away had given birth the day after her. The women were probably together in the maternity ward. I often saw the neighbor with her baby whenever she visited my mother. The baby was called Gaby and looked funny – strong, blond, bright blue eyes, just like me. Compared to Susanne, Gaby hardly cried.
Two or three years later, when I was practicing for school with my mother, she casually told me that Susanne wasn’t my real sister, but Gaby, that the children in the nursery were switched. I didn’t ask anything. Ten-year-olds don’t understand the implications of such statements. If mother conveyed it so calmly, it wouldn’t be so bad, I thought at the time.
And yet it was the moment when the truth was planted in me like a root, which from now on grew unceasingly: My sister wasn’t my sister? But instead another girl who lived 200 meters down the street? My mother developed a bizarre way of dealing with the subject. She often told people about the switch, including later my wife. Only those affected did not say anything! For my wife, that sentence was like a hammer blow. But mother would not tolerate any questions. But there was whispering behind closed doors, aunts spoke the blunt truth at family celebrations. Gaby just looked like us, only Susanne didn’t fit into our family.
It wasn’t always easy
Already in kindergarten she had difficulties. ‘Detlef, please take care of Susi.’ Susi needs this, needs that: Everything revolved around Susanne! She made no friends and did poorly at school, but my mother had the ambition to navigate her through life well, like a particularly fragile sweetheart. I was hardly noticed, everything was going well for me. Susanne was mother’s favorite child.
To this day I wonder why? Was it maternal bonding hormones from birth that could no longer sever the bond? Was it too late to swap back when she finally found out? Or did my grandfather’s schizophrenia play its part in lying to himself over and over again? Part of her knew it from the start, I’m sure – another part continued to deny it. ‘Don’t bother me,’ was Mother’s reply, over and over again when the subject later came up.
I would have loved to have grown up with Gaby. Although both families were simple miners’ families, our everyday life was carefree, at least beyond the lie. We ate supper together, went on family outings, celebrated in the allotment garden, my mother was fun-loving and liked to go bowling. My father played skat, collected stamps, was a quiet guy. My parents made sure that we got an education. It was different in the family Gaby grew up in. Despite her bright head, she was not encouraged and had to leave school after graduating from secondary school because she was supposed to earn money.
We were long grown up when Gaby and I started the official fight for the truth. That left a lot of bad blood in the families, and I can’t get along with Susanne anymore either. But as Aeschylus says: the bond of blood unites powerfully. I will never understand why my mother raised us with this lie. It hurts me to this day.”
*The names of the non-biological siblings have been changed by the editors