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Chapter 21-How was it to knock on those doors?
Nov 22, 2025
11m 45s
Chapter 20-Why can't you feel all the love around you?
Jul 22, 2025
19m 29s
Chapter 19-Did you ever reach out to the adoption contacts?
Mar 2, 2025
19m 19s
Chapter 18-How did your partner handle the search?
Sep 28, 2024
19m 17s
Chapter 17-Can the trauma of adoption worsen or diminish depending on the adopting family?
Jun 19, 2024
22m 37s
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| Date | Episode | Topics | Guests | Brands | Places | Keywords | Sponsor | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11/22/25 | ![]() Chapter 21-How was it to knock on those doors?✨ | human rightsidentity restoration+3 | — | Human Rights OfficeCivil Registry of Buenos Aires | — | identityhuman rights+4 | — | 11m 45s | |
| 7/22/25 | ![]() Chapter 20-Why can't you feel all the love around you?✨ | identityadoption+4 | — | adopterad.com | — | adoptiontherapy+5 | — | 19m 29s | |
| 3/2/25 | ![]() Chapter 19-Did you ever reach out to the adoption contacts?✨ | adoptionidentity+4 | — | — | — | adoptionsearch+5 | — | 19m 19s | |
| 9/28/24 | ![]() Chapter 18-How did your partner handle the search?✨ | attachment modelromantic relationships+3 | — | — | — | adoptionattachment theory+3 | — | 19m 17s | |
| 6/19/24 | ![]() Chapter 17-Can the trauma of adoption worsen or diminish depending on the adopting family?✨ | adoptiontrauma+4 | — | — | — | adoption traumafamily influence+5 | — | 22m 37s | |
| 3/25/24 | ![]() Chapter 16-Who is Mercedes, the liberator of slaves? Part2✨ | child traffickingsearch for identity+3 | — | — | Sweden | Mercedeschild trafficking+3 | — | 15m 37s | |
| 1/21/24 | ![]() Chapter 15-Who is Mercedes, the liberator of slaves? part1✨ | identityadoption+3 | — | The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo | Sweden | DNAadoption+3 | — | 29m 45s | |
| 12/22/23 | ![]() Chapter 14-Who are the "Bartuquitas"?✨ | baby traffickingadoption+4 | — | — | 2016 | baby traffickingadoption+4 | — | 29m 12s | |
| 11/14/23 | ![]() Chapter 13-Why the search, if you already have a family?✨ | identityadoption+4 | — | — | — | identityadoption+4 | — | 15m 34s | |
| 10/22/23 | ![]() Chapter 12-Who is Dr Bartucca and his henchmen?✨ | adoptionbaby trafficking+4 | — | military dictatorship | ArgentinaBuenos Aires | adoptionbaby trafficking+4 | — | 12m 57s | |
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| 10/7/23 | ![]() Chapter 11-Who is Martin, the unwitting hero? Part2 | After seven years of not having any contact, we got in touch again thanks to social networks. He appeared on Facebook one day and we became friends there. At that time, 2009-2010, I was recovering from a burnout that left me isolated at home and from which I more or less rehabilitated little by little and with a lot of patience. One day I saw that Martin had posted something about the military dictatorship and I dared to ask him if he thought he was the son of the disappeared too. I told him about my suspicions and that I had approached the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo before moving to Sweden, but that I didn’t leave the DNA for them to find a match at their DNA bank. He, with the self assurance that characterizes him, answered me: "I don't think I am a son of a disappeared person, but I'm about to travel to Argentina. Do you want me to find out if you are?" I answered yes, not really understanding how he could find out such a thing, and at the same time not daring to ask him. Martín traveled to Argentina and returned a few weeks later, but I wasn’t ready to hear the answer. It wasn't until a year later that I worked up enough courage to do it and his response was: “I was afraid you would ask me, because the answer is hard. Yes you are. I, on the other hand, am not." We talked about it via Skype chat. I kept asking him questions, but he told me that this, was the only information he had been given. I asked if I could speak directly to them, and more importantly, who "they" were. “Nata, these are dangerous people. Don't get involved" he replied.It was first in 2018 that I understood what he meant. Since he arrived in Switzerland, Martín has been working in security, thanks to his past in the police and military. And thanks to the fact that he worked very hard and consistently, he achieved a very good economic and social status. Basically, Martín, after surviving Argentina, reinvented himself and rebuilt his life. A bit like me, if you take away economic success and social status.After he told me what he had found out, we lost contact again. I always take very strong news very calmly, and at that time, I was just coming out of my peak of depression, and I wanted to dedicate myself more than anything to producing my music and rebuilding my life from a healthier place. I was 33 years old and had released my first single produced by me, "No te doy más" through my record company "El Sol y la Luna music". -If I may say, quite an achievement for someone who two years before could barely get out of bed, answer the phone or leave the house. The road to rehabilitation from a burnout, or any type of depression or trauma is long, complex, and you have to have a lot of patience and perseverance. In my case, at that time at least, it consisted of training, going to my twelve-step meetings, meditating, and going to talks by my friend Jeremy Halpin, an expert in Chinese medicine, about the connection between energy, the body, the emotions and the soul.I was determined to recover, and dealing with the search for my biological origin was a luxury I could not afford at the time. In theory, I understood how essential a person's biological identity is, but the whole thing was so overwhelming that I didn't see a reason to go there. I decided that it was the moment in my life to build my future the way I wanted to build it. It was already 2012 and it was time to invest in my career, have economic stability, and eventually later on, if that was what we wanted with my partner, even think about having a family. But as I usually say, I can always count on my life to ruin my plans. 2013 arrived and with that February the death of my mother. The search could not wait any longer. It was written in the stars. From that year on, the noise inside me would stun me until I listened to it. Slowly but surely, the door opened, and I felt like Alice in Wonderland tumbling down the rabbit hole.I already talked about what followed. It was going to the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo and eventually leaving my DNA at the end of 2015, to see if my biological family was in their genetic data bank.That year I had won a scholarship from the Swedish Arts Grants committee, to work with the argentine artist Kevin Johansen and I took the opportunity to travel to Argentina and stay until I received the result, which as I already mentioned was negative.I returned to Sweden in April 2016 to resume my Swedish life with a plan: I was going to lock myself in my studio, get depressed and work. That great emptiness and hopelessness that the result had left me was going to consume me, and I was going to let it. I was not going to resist, I was not going to have more hope, I was not going to try to find the positive side of all this, or try to understand what I learned from it. I was just going to sink into my pain and self-pity.But Simon, and John, my partner at the time, had other plans. The two came together one day to my studio and ambushed me saying: “That's it? Are you going to give up?" They insisted for a long time, they gave me all the reasons why I couldn't give up, they very seriously explained to me that if I did I would regret it in the future and after all, if we had already come this far, why not continue a little bit more? That someone had to know something more. Somehow there should be another way to continue the search. Why not hire a private detective?To which I finally said: "Well, maybe there is someone who can help me."It is in this part when I tell this story, that a character from the Mexican television children's program “Chespirito” appears in my head. A superhero with whom I grew up, who wore a huge heart on his chest as an emblem, the red Cricket. The scene was always the same, someone was in trouble and said "And now, who can defend us?" and out of nowhere he appeared, and everyone yelled "the red cricket!" " El Chapulín colorado" to which he responded "You didn't count on my cleverness" "No contaban con mi astucia!"and saved the day.So there, when Simón mentioned the private detective I thought: “I'm going to call my Red cricket”. I sent Martin a message right there and of course he answered within minutes. Thus we resume the adventures of Naty and Martin, the red cricket.I told him everything that had happened. Everything.The story with the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, the documentary, my sadness. And Martín, who is a born hero, without hesitating for a minute, decided to help me. Simon, John and me, traveled to Switzerland in October 2016. We only stayed a couple of days, I brought him a copy of the file that Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo had on my case and Martín as soon as he read it, sent a message to a contact in Argentina who could provide us with information about the doctor who sold me, Celestino Bartucca and the address where I was supposedly born. Within an hour we received the answer: “There were many people who asked about that address and that doctor, especially cases that had to do with the theft of babies during the time of the military dictatorship”. He also sent us the link to a YouTube video of hidden camera footage of Dr. Bartucca, where it was made clear that the sale of babies was very common and hardly penalized. Who had uploaded it on youtube was Lorena Quiroga, a participant in that video. A brave woman who, also being sold by the doctor, was looking for her truth.We returned from Switzerland and my soul was aching. They had sold me like a pet. Reality is more beautiful when one imagines it than when one confronts it. But I also came back with a new inner strength thanks to the fact that Martín, who really had no reasons to do it, had used his contacts and dedicated his precious and scarce time to us for a couple of days. Faced with such a heavy reality, a hero stood up and changed the course of my story. A hero would take off his disguise and show himself for who he really was and lift me out of the mud. We met again in Paris, when we went with Simon to meet Ignacio Carlotto, the recovered grandson I talked about before and Claudia Carlotto, coordinator of Conadi, and again when we traveled to Argentina together in 2018 and found out about baby trafficking and tried to connect the military dictatorship with Dr. Bartucca. The last trip to Argentina was made by Simón and I alone. Of course I missed Martin, but I also understand that for whatever reason, he may have had to put his time and energy into other things. Martín and I swim in the same water and although in many ways we are very different, somewhere inside of us we are very similar. When he looks at me I know that he sees me and when I look at him I believe or hope that he knows that I see him too. Being able to do part of this journey with him was a luxury, being able to inhabit his aura was fascinating. There are people like that in the world, with so many layers and facets and depths that are endless. Martin is one of them. A hero who blends in very dark places, but who will always be who he has always been, that boy I knew, who played detective at recess, the one who defended those who couldn't defend themselves, the one who loved justice since a young age.His soul will always be his soul. And I will always know that it is there. It doesn't matter which path he takes in life. Martin will always be my unwitting hero. My red cricket. My Chapulín colorado. | — | ||||||
| 8/21/23 | ![]() Chapter 10-Who is Martin, the unwitting hero? | One of the things that I never get tired of repeating is that , if there is something I have learned over time, it is that in life, things are not black and white, people are not simply good or bad. Life is not like a Hollywood movie, where the characters lack nuance and the bad guy is easy to spot from the beginning of the story. Reality and people are much more complex and are full of gray areas, explanations and stories, which is why it is sometimes so difficult to understand what is really happening. Although one might be faced with an uncomfortable truth and the brain would really like to simplify, classify, judge and discard, sooner or later one will have to accept that everything comes from somewhere and everything is going somewhere. Like fish in the stream of water formed by the history of humanity. And in those waters we try to swim a unique route, but never out of the current that we had to live in. Simply put, we do what we can with the destiny that was given to us. Apparently Martin and I met as soon as our families adopted us, that is to say they acquired us. His sister and my brother went to kindergarten together at the German school where we would later go too.There the two mothers met, each one with their respective brown baby and I imagine they compared adoptions. We have known each other since then. We went to kindergarten together, too, and then we were in the same class in elementary school. Martin was my first boyfriend in second grade, along with another Martin. Yeah, apparently back then I was polyamorous. Martín told the other Martín that he and I actually were a better fit, since our skin color was similar. We were the two little browns in a class full of whites and blondes. In fact, you could see who was adopted at my school, because they were generally the little brown ones, with the occasional exception. At recess Martin played detective, and always played the vigilante hero character. He was taller than the others and it was known that one was not to mess around with Martín. My mom told me that when he was little he used to go to school with his sister by public transportation. My brother and I would take the school bus. "How brave" I always thought. Martin was born to be a hero. Next to him I always felt soft and completely harmless. After elementary school, Martín disappeared from my radar.He did high school at the military school because he chose it, which for me, at that age, was unthinkable. The military high school sounded like a punishment, something where children who need discipline are sent. He followed that path and I followed mine, in the secondary German school Goethe Schule. I saw him from time to time in the summer and winter camps organized by the German community. The “DAL-Deutsche Argentinische lagergruppe” camps, which I understood much later, had a remnant of the dark times of Germany and its “Hitler Jugend”. There, we met with Martin. He had already gone since he was a boy. I only joined when I was 14 years old. Of course back then, none of us saw it that way. At least for me, it was with the happiness that one feels if one likes to camp and be in contact with nature, something that I still feel today.It consisted of sleeping in a tent, bathing in the river, cooking for the whole group, gathering wood for the fire, hiking for several days, sleeping under the stars and singing at night. There I learned to play songs on the guitar by artists like Leon Gieco, Seru Giran, Sui Generis, Creedence, Rod Steward, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Cat Stevens and traditional German songs that are still associated with a time in Germany that is better to forget, or better said never, ever repeat again. The "DAL" taught me to be close to nature, to love the nights and the stars, to feel a longing for something beyond reality, it taught me to dream. Many years later, already living in Sweden, I realized the dark history of the German community in Argentina. As I said before, nothing is black or white. In the midst of that darkness, surrounded by a society that was so keen in separating people by color and genetics and Martin and I, so obviously not belonging with them, I learned to see the stars, and to play songs that I still play today, needless to say, the German ones are definitely not included in that. Both things, the songs and the stars continue to save me even when reality overwhelms me. After I was 15 years old, Martin didn't come to the camps anymore. Every once in a while he sent me letters, because there weren't any traces of cell phones at that time, and he would tell me how life was going for him in high school. Martin seemed to live a life full of adventure, while mine was the boring life of an overprotected middle-class teenager. Apart from the constant fights and violence in my family, absolutely nothing was happening in my life.Years passed and I knew little about Martin, except that after high school he joined the Federal Police of the province of Buenos Aires, which, at least at that time, had the worst reputation of all the police forces. It was said that they were the most corrupt, bloodthirsty and heartless. That it was always best not to have anything to do with the police. And our paths would have continued apart, if it hadn't been that apparently my fate had to change abruptly, with the rape that I survived on August 7, 2001. As the crime took place in the northern area of the city of Buenos Aires, my case went to San Isidro, which was the police station where Martin worked. He, who was actually in the narcotics section, told me that that day in the stack of files that had been placed on his desk, there appeared a case that he would not normally be assigned to. A rape case. And when he looked closer he realized it was me.Reality beating fiction again.Of all the police stations, of all the detectives, of all the desks, Martin had to be the detective on my case. I remember the first meeting with him to talk about what had happened. Me carrying the typical shame that characterizes each and every survivor of sexual abuse, eternally grateful that he was the one I had to tell the details to. Something in his eyes told me that for him I was not just another case. Something told me that he was on my side, on my team.That's how we got in touch again. As I mentioned before, after the rape, on an adventure tourism trip I met the 35-year-old Swede with whom I would fall in love and for whom I would move to Stockholm in June 2002.I sold everything and left. I needed to start a new life, in a new place, far from who I was, far from my story, far from the character that I played in the reality in which I lived. I knew little about Martín during those years. That they set him up and that he had ended up in jail was one of them, and that he later moved to Switzerland to rebuild his life was another.Just like Al Pacino did in the movie “Serpico”. It was first in 2010 and thanks to Facebook and the fact that I spent a lot of time at home and on social networks thanks to the fact that a few months before my post-traumatic depression had peaked and I suffered a burnout, I saw that one day he posted something about the military and the dictatorship and out of the blue I asked him: "Do you think you also are the son of the disappeared?" "I don't think so," he replied, "but if you want to know, I'll find out for you""Well, yes, thank you" I replied.It had been approximately seven years since we last spoke, but as always, I felt that our lives followed a parallel path. As if our souls before being born had agreed to meet up when we were on this side, and accompany each other, so as not to lose ourselves completely in this confusing world.This is how Martín returned to my radar, like the unwitting hero that he is.I didn't know it at the time, but a few years later, thanks to him, hope would return to my body.For the second time. | — | ||||||
| 8/8/23 | ![]() Chapter 9-Don't let this define your life, try to live instead (don't be sad) | Since I first found out I was adopted, around the age of 5 or 6 years, every time the subject is brought up in any possible situation, what follows directly after is some kind of comment that tries to direct my perception of what happened at the beginning of my life to a place of non-importance – trying to normalize it.Needless to say, 99% of people who have done this, are not adopted and grew up with their biological family. For example: "But your biological origin doesn't matter, what matters is your real family". Or: "Think how lucky you were. Imagine where else you would be now if you wouldn’t have been adopted". "Mom is not the one who gave birth to you, but the one who raised you". Or the classic: "you are looking for excuses to play the victim and not take responsibility for your life", or "you choose to identify yourself as adopted because it is what you know and who would you be without that identity?". Or even, "we all have problems, I also sometimes wondered if I was adopted”. In recent times, since I started telling people about the search and the documentary that we began filming in 2015, the most frequent comment has been: "Don't let this define your life, try to live instead."All these comments, I believe, were never made to harm me. As I understood after my rape, when people feel powerless in the face of injustice, what they try to do is control the damage caused by the unchanging reality, since there is no way to change society and reality as a whole. Just like the comments after my rape that pointed out directly, or indirectly, that I could have done something to prevent it – or that I could have done something to prevent the trauma it caused – many people have tried to do damage control of a cruel society that they are part of, by putting the blame for my pain on me.To illustrate more clearly, what happens is something like this: Imagine that for a reason that you can't control, you step on a floor that is on fire and burn your feet.So people's reaction would be:"Why did you walk on that floor?" And not "Why was that floor on fire?"As the burn-wounds heal, these people push you to walk again."It's over, it's in the past, how much longer will your rehabilitation last?" And not: "how are those wounds?"While the soles of your feet continue to hurt and it is difficult for you to walk, they’ll comment:“I also once wondered if my feet were burned, we all have problems sometimes”, instead of: “I can't really imagine what that pain is like, but I'm here if you need to talk”.While looking for different ways to disinfect the wounds so that they can heal once and for all, some people proclaim:“I think that you really like to identify yourself as the burned one, you like to play the victim”, instead of: “You can do this! One day at a time, you will heal"And every time you are filled with frustration and you wish you were someone else, and not have to go through all that rehabilitation process:“I think you actually like to be the burned one. Who would you be if you weren't that? You know that there are people that are burned far worse than you, right?" Instead of just giving a hug and encouraging: "You're moving forward, keep going, we love you just the way you are."In the event that the anxiety caused by the pain of the reality that one is trying to avoid makes one look for ways to escape from it all and keep one’s self entertained by, say, working too hard, never staying still, seeking toxic relationships, or eating poorly: “Stop running away! Your problem is that you don't confront your pain! You do not accept your past! You don't let go!"Instead of a simple: "How are you?"And the last and most frequent one: "Don't let this define your life, try to live instead." There is so much information in that comment that I don't even know where to start. The phrase that comes to mind is: "What John says about Peter, says more about John than about Peter"For example, how and when could I not let this define my life? Perhaps at the time I was born? Should I have just stood there and said, "No, I don't want to be adopted." Or when society repeatedly pointed out, since I was a little girl, that I was different, should I have responded: "No, I do not allow any of you to define me as different!" Or when my mom repeatedly told me that I had “slum genes”, should I have stopped her right there and said: “First of all, I don't think that the “slum gene” appears in the human genome. Secondly, what’s wrong with being from the slums? And thirdly, in the event that there was such a gene, according to science at this time, it is the habitat that activates different characteristics in people, that is, if my so-called slum gene was activated, it is thanks to you.” I was illegally adopted as a baby. I did not grow up with my biological family. I don't know what the reason was, but that was my fate. That is a fact. I didn't “let it” define me, because I had no choice. The verb “let” in that sentence implies that I chose it. Babies don't choose. They exist. Adults have more options. The identity I received from a society like the Argentine/German one is one that was given to me. The reason why this identity was given to me has to do with many other very complex factors, which have a lot to do with ignorance, consciousness or lack of it and the times we live in. It's not personal, but it happened to me. That I have spent part of my adult life trying to get rid of that identity, and have tried to find an identity that is broader, more inclusive, and in line with who I really am, is my choice. That is my will. That's why I decided to search for my roots; to understand, accept and eventually let go, all in due time. That I did learn from my rape. Traumas shape us, until they no longer shape us, until we rebuild ourselves, until we become more than the sum total of the parts that made us. The most important thing is to accompany one’s self at every step, with compassion for the person who bears the pain. In the same way that one would accompany a best friend, by acknowledging courage, frustration, sadness and strength.With this, I don’t want to say that it is not true that sometimes I feel like a victim and I want to curl up on my sofa and never leave my house again. Or that sometimes the pain and pity for myself do not allow me to see the great things in my life, the love, abundance, beauty and creativity. No, that happens to me too.But when people tell me to try to live my life instead, I wonder if they think I'm a millionaire and don't have to go to work and do whatever it takes to live my life like any other grown up person.No, nobody pays my bills so I better take care of myself and stay healthy.Luckily, and probably thanks to the 12-step program, I found a way to still get out of bed every day. If that would change, I would look into other options, such as medication. In the case that "trying to live" actually refers to "trying to enjoy life", well that's a bit more difficult. But believe me, it's not for lack of willpower. Sometimes the wounds just won’t leave me alone. Besides, enjoying life and feeling grateful for what one has, isn't that a challenge for everyone?Oh, and why don’t I heal faster?I don't know. I think somewhere in all of this there is a plan. The other day, I was thinking, without really deserving such a comparison but just to use it as a very clear example, that hadn’t it been for the pain that Martin Luther King felt, what would have happened to the social change that his civil rights movement led? Perhaps it is necessary for us to be exactly who we are, and to walk the path that we are going through in exactly the way we are doing, because in our healing, in each story and each path, there is everyone’s healing.I don't know.I only know that I will not stop being sad because someone tells me to do so. The only thing that would happen then, is that I would stop opening up, talking, sharing. I would instead get depressed, convinced that I deserve my loneliness. Convinced that I deserve my abandonment. And that it's all my fault.And then I would curl up on my sofa and want to disappear. To stop living my life is not an option. I will always do what I can, with the strength and tools I have, like everyone else.Now, on behalf of all of us who are on a heavy path such as the search for our biological identity, I ask you dear people for understanding, hugs and patience.Don't worry about the rest, we've been rootless and defined by it since the beginning of our time, and we're pretty used to it by now.I can assure you, we will live despite it. | — | ||||||
| 7/21/23 | ![]() Chapter 8-The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo part3 | Years passed and as I have said in previous episodes, when my mother died in 2013 and after hearing that one of her last wishes was for me to find my truth, always thinking that I was the daughter of the disappeared, I finally took the courage to speak to my dad. It was important for me to inform him what I was going to do, because of the consequences it would bring him.To my great surprise, his response was positive. I had waited thirteen years to have this conversation. I had prepared myself in every possible way, expecting any kind of reaction from him except this one. It looked like in those thirteen years, he had had time to think about it and change his mind. His reaction was so surprising to me, that I, who never run out of words, was speechless. It was February 2015, I was about to return to Sweden, but since Conadi had sent emails to me a few months before asking me if I felt I was ready to leave the DNA, I decided to visit them to ask some last questions before going back to Sweden and leaving it there. I wanted to go back to my home, to my friends, to my psychologist, to my work, to my place in the world safe and sound from everything, to be able to process the whole thing better.The questions I had were trivial to the rest of the world, but important to me. For example, if they found a family in their gene bank, how long would it take until my last name was changed? And is my Argentine passport automatically changed? And my ID? And what would happen to my German passport? And my residence permit? And my bank account? And my bank cards? And how long would the whole process take?If I was going to lose control of my identity, I wanted to know at least on a practical level what it would mean. After all, a part of me is German, the one that looks for structure and predictability. I went to Conadi with my friend Adri, who had accompanied me the first time I went to the Grandmothers because he insisted. I was actually planning to go on my own. Thank God for those wise friends who know me and my little capacity to ask them for help and insist on showing up, ignoring my poor judgment. We arrived at Conadi and they took us to the office of the person who was in charge of my case. It all started well. When we came in, he already had my file open on his desk. I don't remember how the talk started, but I did tell him that I had come to ask him a few last questions. I told him that I was going to leave the DNA in Sweden, to which he said: “Why don’t you leave it right here, right now?”. I calmly tried to explain why, but my answers seemed to irritate him. I didn't understand what was happening, but since I was so used to giving explanations in my life, patiently and without getting upset, I tried to be clear and stay calm.Having carried all this trauma inside all these years, in a world that doesn't seem to understand much about it, one of the solutions I found is to explain the necessary so that people around me, in the absence of understanding, at least leave me alone and I can continue in peace with my internal processes.So sitting there that hot afternoon in that office at Conadi, seeing that man´s irritation, I tried to stay calm and explain to him why I wasn't going to leave the DNA then and there, but everything I said seemed to irritate him even more. To the point that he started threatening me. And since I would not let him convince me, nor get upset by what he told me, he finally concluded our talk by closing my file saying: "If you do not leave the DNA now, I cannot guarantee you that we won’t force you to leave it" to which I replied: “What you decide to do or not to do, is out of my control. Do whatever you have to do, cause I'm going to do exactly the same, which is to inform myself”. Because that is my duty as the adult that I am. Get informed, take responsibility, gather strength, and do what I can within my human limitations.Everything was so unreal, it felt like I was in a movie. He was sitting on the other side of the desk, reclining in his chair with my file closed in front of him, like in those scenes where a prisoner, or criminal, or suspect, or even an alleged terrorist captured by the authorities, is about to be interrogated, then to be thrown into the dungeon. And I was there, trying to prove that I came in peace, and that I didn't want any problems. Trying to show my innocence. This scene felt so extremely wrong, taking place in the last place one would expect it to be played out. The meeting lasted for almost an hour. Me and my friend, also horrified, got out of the building as quickly as possible. I swore never to go near The Grandmother of Plaza de Mayo or Conadi ever again. I thought: "I'm going back to Sweden and good luck with trying to find me." Of course when I told my acquaintances what happened they didn't believe me. Especially in Argentina. And I understand why. After all that the Grandmothers, whose children disappeared during the last Argentine military dictatorship suffered, after having to fight for every millimeter of justice, tirelessly seeking the truth in the hope of recovering their grandchildren, it is impossible to conceive that they could allow any of this to happen. We all do that. We put people on pedestals, we need immaculate heroes. Perfect heroes, almost with divine characteristics, because something has to be holy in this world. Specially in Argentina. Someone or something has to be able to be beyond the corrupt and unfair reality. Someone has to save us. But in the act of elevating others above everything else, we forget that we are all just mere humans, we are fish swimming in the stream of the forces of society that surround us, erring and learning all the time. We are not infallible, nobody is. We all do what we can with what was given to us, in the times we are born into. To believe that an entity like the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo is perfect and infallible is crazy. They have done great things. In their tenacious search for the truth and justice, they have accomplished incredible things. And to them we owe so much, but they are not of divine origin. They are people like everyone else, learning, making mistakes, trying. As I mentioned previously, the Foreign Ministry contacted me in August 2015. The judge told me to leave the DNA because a case had been opened.Before leaving the DNA I traveled to Argentina because it was my father's 75th birthday and I wanted to attend the party. At the airport on my way back to Sweden, when they saw my passport, they took it away without giving me any explanation and returned it to me after a while, also without giving me any explanation. That time I almost missed the plane back to Sweden. Even in 2016, when I had already left the DNA, upon arriving in Argentina, at the airport, they held me in a migration room until they could contact the judge in my case. In the same room they held another individual, suspected, I think, to have a fake passport.Yes, that's right, they kept me in a room, like a criminal. Within an hour, when they were finally able to speak to the judge, they let me go. It was very difficult not to feel like an object all these years. An evidence-bearing object. An object that was stolen in a state of total vulnerability, an object that was sold to a family, an object that had only to feel gratitude for growing up in that family. An object that had to give up its identity in the name of the justice of a country, in order to find its other identity that was so badly longed for. The news that they had not found a relative in the Grandmother’s gene bank was not given to me personally. They sent me an email the Wednesday before Easter. They didn't tell me yes or no, just that the result had arrived. I had to wait until Monday to get it. Can you imagine the anxiety of those four days? When I called the judge on Monday, his secretary answered instead saying: “Oh, didn't I send it to you? The result is negative” And he explained to me that they would basically drop the case and stop looking. I asked him to please withdraw my name from immigration, because I didn't want them to hold me back again at the airport when I left the country, and he, surprised that they had done it, explained to me that what they should have done instead was simply notify the judge every time I entered or left the country, nothing more. He apologized for that, and assured me that there would be no more problems. Thus ended the chapter of Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.With one more detail, which I think is very important to mention. In 2016 I traveled to Paris with Simon to meet the pianist and recovered grandson, Ignacio Montoya Carlotto. He was touring Europe and Claudio Carlotto, his aunt, and head of Conadi, accompanied him. It was an incredible meeting, which filled me with inspiration. Ignacio is a very intelligent, sensitive, talented person, and with a wonderful sense of humor. And Claudia, who told me that in times of exile she ended up in Sweden and hated it, was warm and understanding. She told me that she had heard what happened with the man in charge of my case at Conadi and apologized to me on camera. She told me that he no longer worked at the Grandmothers and that the meeting I had with him should never have happened. That she was very sorry for what happened. And that’s how things are done. We all make mistakes. We're just humans trying to do the best we can. Nothing else. Pedestals have never been helpful for anything. Instead taking responsibility for our mistakes, become aware of our part and making amends, yes. That is our true salvation. Or rather said, that is our only salvation. | — | ||||||
| 7/8/23 | ![]() Chapter 7-The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo part 2 | The day I went to the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo my legs were shaking. I went there with a friend who held me the last few meters to the door of the building. I made my “spontaneous presentation” at the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo-which basically means that I presented myself there saying that I had suspicions that I was the daughter of a disappeared person. Back in the days there were not many of us who did it. Back then, it was apparently unusual but changed with the Kirchner presidency that came the following years and today, thanks to a lot of campaigning, it is well known what to do if one suspects to be the daughter or son of a disappeared person and wants to go to Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.For me it was like coming out of the closet. I made myself visible, according to my family to a possible enemy. As I mentioned before, at that time you only heard stories about how they persecuted people and once they suspected that they had found a son or daughter of a disappeared person, they did not stop until they got a DNA sample from that grandchild and incarcerated the family that raised them. And of course, they had reasons for doing this. In most cases, these babies were the children of detained-disappeared women who were pregnant and who were kept alive in clandestine detention centers until they gave birth. Sometimes these women were even tortured despite being pregnant. The dictatorship had set up a secret regulation to establish the procedure in these cases and organized clandestine maternity hospitals inside or near the clandestine detention centers, with doctors and nurses under military command. Once the delivery occurred, the mother was murdered and false documents were made for the baby, erasing its original identity. The babies were then delivered to couples who, many times, were accomplices or accessories in the murder of the biological parents and the suppression of the identity of the children. On some occasions, the children were registered as their own by the appropriators and, on others, through illegal adoptions. (Wikipedia) For some reason and logic that I still have a hard time understanding, it made perfect sense to kill the mothers, but not the newborn babies. From what I understood, they believed that newborn babies could be saved from the left-wing ideologies of their biological parents, if they were raised by right-wing people.I don't remember if I went to The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo once or twice that year. I do remember meeting Estela de Carlotto, the president of Abuelas, Abel Madariaga, secretary of Abuelas, and I think even Claudio Carlotto, coordinator of Conadi.I remember being able to chat a bit with Abel and Estela and feeling that I was in the presence of great souls, people with integrity, who, because of the things they had experienced and seen, had courage in their eyes. They talked to me about identity, that it was my right and that we all need to know where we come from. For the first time, I felt like someone knew what was happening to me.They asked me to bring my birth certificate so they could start an investigation and determine if there could in fact be suspicions that I was the daughter of a disappeared person. If so, they would ask me for a DNA sample to compare it with the DNA samples from the National Genetic Data Bank (BNDG) where all the samples of the relatives who are looking for the children of the disappeared by state terrorism are stored, and from all the people who suspect they are the daughters or sons of the disappeared, and have already left their sample. At absolutely no time was there any talk of coercion.A few days later I asked my dad for my birth certificate and as I said before, I don't remember much about that day, except that it was probably Sunday because the entire family was at home, and the reaction of all of them consisted more than anything in screams, anxiety, chaos and threats. I, who was never a rebel, nor a person who would ever impose my will, nor one of those who don't care about starting a conflict, did not give in and insisted on having my papers.I left my birth certificate at Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo and soon after moved to Sweden, following that Swedish Viking I fell in love with. The one who seemed so brave, wise and sure of himself. The one who, unlike the world around me, advocated for human rights.I arrived in Stockholm on June 9, 2002, four days before I saw Argentina lose in the World Cup against Sweden, which added even more to that bizarre feeling of having moved to the other side of the planet. Shortly after I settled in, I received a message from my friend Dario who was my contact with Conadi. He had been contacted by them, telling him that they had important news and that I should call them. For those who do not know what the Conadi is, it´s the National Commission for the Right to Identity, which promotes the search for sons and daughters of the disappeared and people born during the captivity of their mothers, during the last Argentine civic-military dictatorship, in order to determine their whereabouts and restore their identity. They are basically the Grandmother’s detectives, the ones who do the investigative part.I took courage and called, like someone who wants to know but doesn't really want to know. They told me that the doctor who signed my birth certificate, Dr. Bartucca, was already being prosecuted-I remember that word "prosecuted" for other cases. Since this was a strong indication that it was very possible that I was the daughter of the disappeared, they asked me to leave the DNA when I was ready to leave it. Again, no coercion.I remember sitting in the living room of that huge apartment in Kungsholmen, the area of Stockholm where we lived, in a state of shock, not knowing what to do with myself. As soon as my Swedish boyfriend got home from work I told him what had happened, but he didn't seem to understand at all what the call I had had earlier with Conadi implied. It seemed there was a good chance that I would find a biological family. In other words, if I left the DNA, my identity would be changed and a process would begin to determine what role my father and mother played in my appropriation. “This is as far as my love for justice goes” I thought “Someday, if the laws change, if I can make sure that nothing happens to my parents, I will leave my DNA”.So years went by, convinced that if I left the DNA I was going to find my biological family and at the same time terrified that I would be forced to leave it and lose so much.In the years that followed, the Argentine government changed and awareness of what happened in the last military dictatorship grew. Also awareness of women's rights and social inequality. I'm not saying this because I sympathize with any political party. The reason why I noticed a change is that my mom began to talk to me about these issues when she would call me. My mother who did not read a book unless it was about cooking recipes, who at some point questioned whether the Earth was really round and who had television characters like Mirta Legrand and Susana Giménez as a cultural reference - If you don't know who they are, well without wanting to be cruel, I can say, they have not been banners of the high culture and sophistication of the country - well, one day she began to talk about the Grandmothers and feminism. If this information and change of attitude had reached my mother, then there really had been changes in the Argentine society! Without telling anyone, every so often I would send an email to Conadi, asking if the laws had changed. It was the only thing that worried me. Was there any way that I could restore my biological past without having to destroy my present? For me, and perhaps for many others in the same situation as me, the price to pay to obtain the truth of the past was very high. Losing my identity to impose another twice in my life sounds quite unnecessary. I wasn’t a little girl that had been appropriated by a couple for a few years and would go back to my original family when this was happening. When this started I was already 23 years old, a fully-fledged woman. With all the cultural heritage of my adoptive family. A rare cross between a German hybrid because of my dad, an Austrian because of my mom and an Argentine because of the country I grew up in and my genetic heritage. Carrying a last name impossible to pronounce for most Spanish speakers and a strange love for the North European.I always absolutely adored my family. Dysfunctional as it all was, despite the violence and neglect of my parents, I loved them with my entire being, as all children love their parents. When my mom passed away from cancer in 2013, I was by her side until her last breath. And when I hugged my dad before leaving for the airport on June 30, 2022, knowing that it would be the last time I would see him alive, inside I felt like I was dying.Giving up my last name, my history, my inheritance, my family, because at the moment of my birth the chaotic world that surrounded me made the decisions in accordance with an ideology of that moment and in this way forever determined the course of my life, is a lot to ask.I was not prepared to lose so much. Then there was the matter of possible consequences for my family. I couldn't imagine them going before a judge to testify and being mistreated as they surely would be, simply because they "got the wrong baby". As my dad told me: “If I had known where you came from, I never would have adopted you. I don't agree with that ideology."So I took my time. The desire to know my biological identity was interfered with my fear of all the things I would lose if I found my origin. The right to my identity came with a huge cost. Besides, life in Sweden kept me quite busy,trying to survive as an artist and musician. And with all that trauma on top of everything that kept me awake at night and weak during the days. Trying to live my life beyond the hurts and pains. Trying to dream and find joy in the everyday. Such a hole in my soul, I can assure you, requires a lot of energy and managing.Still to this day, trying to be happy and feel grateful for this life, for me it's a full time job.So, that whole business of taking life changing decisions? Well, I decided to leave it for much, much later. | — | ||||||
| 6/29/23 | ![]() Chapter 6-The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo part 1 | I grew up in a German middle class family in an area that’s called Martinez, San Isidro, Buenos Aires. Those who are from Buenos Aires know exactly what that means, but for those who are not from Buenos Aires here is a summary. San Isidro, located in the northern part of Buenos Aires, is known for being an area of rich people, with European-English, German and French surnames, and for being very right-wing. This is not unusual, as right-wing politics upholds the system that privileges the rich and promotes their social and economical status.Of course, this is a very big generalization, but to summarize something that’s very complicated, let's just say that’s how it is.I then grew up surrounded by right-wing people. And to make matters a little more extreme, I grew up in the Menem era. For those who don't know what this means, here comes an explanation: Argentina had a president from 1989 to 1999 who not only privatized the entire country, but also pardoned many of the people who had been convicted by the previous government. People who were members of the former military dictatorship, commanders convicted in the Junta Trial from 1985. Menem was the president of oblivion, and the society I grew up in was very keen to forget, thanks to an economy that somehow made a dollar worth as much as an Argentine peso, which of course was completely absurd and later led to an economic collapse for the entire country.The little that was said at family gatherings about the disappeared always landed in the conclusion that "They must have done something. If you weren't involved in it, they didn’t come after you".The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo were greatly feared. They were seen as vengeful goblins who only wanted more blood to flow, and Hebe de Bonafini was highlighted as the representative of the entire organization. She was one of the founders of the Grandmother of Plaza de Mayo and it was said that in her activism she advocated for armed confrontation with the government. This howeverWhich did not give a true picture of the important work that the organization did.There was no understanding, no compassion, no empathy for those searching for their missing children. They were portrayed as mad women looking for their terrorist sons and daughters who had been imprisoned as a solution to the disaster they had caused. The missing grandchildren were never even mentioned. Again, the argument that "they must have done something" was what justified everything. According to the message I got at home, one should not have anything to do with the Grandmothers. They just wanted to fight and they were never looking for justice. They just wanted blood and revenge and the best thing to do was to keep your head down and pass unnoticed. Maybe that's why, when I was a little girl, my mother used to tell me that "if they ask you at school which of your parents you look most like, say you look like your mother who is Argentinian". The thing was that my mother was the daughter of Austrians and, in turn, resembled one of the Von Trapp children from the movie "The Sound of Music". So, she did not look Argentinian at all.So I grew up like those privileged middle-class girls from the northern part of Buenos Aires and didn't really care about any of this.It was something that was far away from my reality. I remember my friend from school, who was also adopted, used to read books about the dictatorship, and even identify strongly with it. Without saying it, but probably thinking that she was one of the missing children. The whole thing was very boring to me, and deep down I felt she wanted to be special, and that's why she wanted to think that she was one of those girls. Because as I said before, in the society I grew up in, there was an underlying message that these babies were special, not like the rest who were just children of the poor. It seemed ridiculous to me to talk about something we knew nothing about, and as it was said around me, it is better to look ahead.And that was my attitude, until the day when everything changed and I understood that the only thing left was to go to Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.It wasn't easy-who would I meet at the there? Were they the vengeful goblins that everyone around me was talking about or were they heroines who like Don Quixote fought the windmills of a society that ridiculed them and wanted to forget them? As I already told you, Argentina is a country with so many gray areas that it is almost impossible to trust anyone. It is hard to go against a system that forces people to think only of their own survival. When the reality of a country is so dysfunctional, it forces its inhabitants to be in a constant state of vigilance and fear. Of course, within that system there are people who are trying to change the state of reality that surrounds them, and here and now I want to send my warmest greetings and say that I see you and salute you. The admiration I have for you is endless. So, why I decided to go to the grandmothers has not only to do with the rape I survived on August 7, 2001, but also with the Swedish man I met on the adventure tourism trip I took to Mendoza with my cousin.I'm going to rewind here a bit, see if you guys can follow me in this story. August 7, 2001 was a sunny winter day in Buenos Aires. It was a beautiful dry day, which I could feel in my hair because it wasn't the typical disaster that Buenos Aires humidity does to my curls. As I mentioned earlier, I was on my way from my yoga instructor class. As I passed a house and was distracted by how beautifully the sun reflected on the red petals of the flowers in the garden, a young man approached me from behind. He threatened me that I had to do as he said or he would kill me. At first he wanted to rob me, but I had no money on me. Then he forced me to go with him. We walked and walked, I was so scared I didn't try to run away or scream. Eventually he found a secluded spot and I knew what was going to happen.The rape was quick, and like many survivors, I negotiated for him not to hit me, well aware of the frequency of femicide in Argentina. Nothing brings us closer to life than the presence of death. In that moment of total clarity, the two thoughts that would follow me throughout my life arose, the first of which I have already talked about: “Is this all? All my life I've been trying to do everything everyone wants me to do and now I'm going to die?" And the other, which unconsciously had something to do with the suspicions of being the daughter of the disappeared: "If I die now, they'll never know what happened, they'll never find me." But I survived and a couple of months later my psychologist told me that nature heals and that it was a very good idea to go on a trip to Mendoza with my cousin Lily. As life can be, fate struck again and I met a Swedish man at the hostel where we were staying. He seemed like a creature from another planet. Tall, with a cascade of long, straight, copper-colored hair.Like most Swedes, at least in words, very aware of human rights and the injustices of society. When I told him about my adoption, he told me: “Of course you have to search. We all have a right to our identity." I believed him. It was the first time I heard those words: "Identity is a right." I had never considered that concept before. My origins had always been a mist of speculation about where my genes came from.Speculations that assured me it was better not to know anything, that indicated that I should be happy with just being adopted by a family. That’s what I had gotten from life, and it was all there was to have. If there was something that I had permission to feel, something that I was reminded of from time to time, it was gratitude. There was always someone who said: "Look how lucky you were, who knows where you would be now if your mom and dad hadn't picked you up".The right to my biological identity had been revoked from the start and I had to settle for that and be happy. But my soul, which had just survived an episode where a person took the liberty of taking away my right to my physical integrity, reducing me to nothing, listened to the Swedish man's words, which he said with such wisdom and certainty, and reminded me, that this life is mine to live, that it can end at any moment, so it's time to live it.That clarity, that strength made me go against my whole family, the beliefs I grew up with and make the decision to approach the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Life derailed me completely from the path I had been on, and now that I had completely lost my way, why not face my deepest fears and emerge from the anonymity of my adoption and risk being seen?After all, victory always belongs to the brave. | — | ||||||
| 6/18/23 | ![]() Chapter 5-How is the relationship with your family? | The relationship with my family was, in general, difficult. The relationship with my family during my search was particularly difficult.At my age, I have understood that we all do the best we can with what was given to us in this life and that it is impossible to give what you never received. So it was impossible for my parents to give what they never receivedA couple of years ago I asked my dad if he remembered when it was that my mom started being that bitter and aggressive person I grew up with. The fights at home were always violent.My mother always started them and my father endured the aggression until he exploded. The fights then became a marathon of physical, mental and emotional aggression from both sides, which could last for several days. My brother and I grew up in the midst of that unstoppable whirlwind that was created by them.Violence and abusive behavior towards children was very common in those days and I would even say it was considered normal. Things that at the time were considered a daily part of raising children would today make the majority react. But it all really escalated when I was 11, after my grandmother died. And I never understood why my father would put up with a woman as aggressive and cruel as my mother. I always thought that something must have happened to her along the way that turned her into that monster. The only answer I got from my dad was that she really dreamed of having children and after trying for 10 years, that frustration and sadness changed her. Eventually they adopted us and thus the dream of the two children, the house, the car and the provider husband came true. But despite that, there was a pain in her soul that never left her alone. And my father, who only wanted to play tennis, have two children, a house, a car and a beautiful housewife, had no peace either. His peace was always dependent on her peace. My brother, the first one to be adopted three years before me, was always the pride of the family, something that was obvious to everyone who knew us. Not only did he suffer the typical older sibling feeling of being displaced when I arrived, but he was also the one who suffered far more physical abuse than I did. Perhaps because he was the son, he learned to confront them and that's why he received much harsher punishment.I saw that, and I learned not to complain, or answer, or take space, or be sad. I learned to avoid the blow. My brother learned to take it. None of us had peace. He learned to confront, I learned to disappear, put on a poker face and pretend as if "nothing is happening here."A couple of years ago I realized that it is not normal for a 6 year old girl to pray to God at night to take her away because everything she does is wrong and she is just a mistake in this world.In my egocentrism as a child, when I thought I was the cause of all this, I thought it was my job to create that peace that didn't exist. That it was my job to save them, protect them, make them laugh, explain to them and show them how much I loved them, to beg them to stop fighting, to try to understand what hurt them so much and find a solution, a relief so that they would finally find peace within themselves and finally see me. So that there would be love in my family, the love that I had been waiting for for so many years. I did, as children do, everything I could to make them love me as I wanted to be loved, but I never succeeded. So asking about my adoption did not exist in my reality.The biggest threat, from what I understand, for adoptive parents, is that one day their adopted child will come to them and tell them “it's over”. That they don't love them anymore and that they are going to look for their real family. The anxiety of losing their beloved children can make them quite crazy. And it´s understandable. It must be so scary. I felt that all the time. "Even a mare can give birth! A mother is the one who raises you", is what my mother used to say to make it clear to me that it was not worth looking for my biological mother.Children feel what their parents feel. Children understand beyond their words. So I never threatened to look for my biological mother. I had nowhere to go, there were no legal papers about who it was. The feeling that I had was that my biological mother didn't even bother to do things legally. She got rid of me "like a mare". At that time we began to hear about the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and their search for the children stolen by the dictatorship. But it never dawned on anyone in my family that I was one of them. As I mentioned earlier, according to the social norms of the time, I was the daughter of a slum person, a mare, also known as a poor person with no morals, who left me without looking back. But luckily, this family wanted to adopt me and give me the comfort of a middle-class life. As everyone had told me: "There´s no need to look back. The past must be forgotten." Now, before I continue, a trigger warning here, as this is about to get a little bit darker.The good thing or the bad thing, depending on how you look at it, is that life has its own plans.Now, before I continue, a trigger warning here, as this is about to get dark.My suspicions about being the daughter of The Disappeared began sometime in 2001, but it was thnaks thanks to the rape that I survived the 7th of August of that year that many things changed in my life. That day I left the yoga instructor class and instead of taking the busiest street to walk the 6 blocks home, I took the parallel street. There I was stopped by a guy who threatened to kill me. He kidnapped me and eventually raped me. That day I thought I was going to die. Abuses like the one I suffered are still common in Argentina. It is still easy to rape and then kill women, and in 2001 it was even easier. I thought my time was up, right after the rape I looked around to see if anyone would save me but there was no one. This was my destiny and I thought, "I always did everything everyone wanted me to do, I always behaved well, I always tried not to be a burden, not to rebel, waiting for permission to exist and now I will die. What a waste of a life! In the end, no matter how hard you try, it all happens anyway." At the end of that day, I managed to convince my captor to let me go, and that's how the rebuilding of my being began.With the strength of the pain and probably the adrenaline of having survived, a short time later I asked my father for my birth certificate to go to the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and start the search. I don't remember exactly what happened that day and I wouldn't remember anything at all if it wasn't for my friend Adri, who was there with me. Apparently, he witnessed the scene where my father gave me the birth certificate yelling, "You're going to send us all to jail," and my mother screaming that if it hadn't been for them, I'd be dead. My family tried to convince me that the past meant nothing and that I was just looking for excuses to play the victim.Everyone in my family was against my search. And not only against it, they were violently against it. They were terrified of what they read in the newspapers about the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, terrified that I would leave them, terrified that the story was true: that they had bought a baby that had been stolen by the military.That was the last time I talked to them about it. I went to the Grandmothers, did what I was supposed to, moved shortly after to Sweden and never ever mentioned the subject again. My mother tried to get information out of me from time to time and said she had gone to a witch. The witch had told her that I was still searching in silence but that I would wait for her, my mother, to die in order to search freely. The witch was right, but I denied everything. My mother could not handle the anxiety of my search, nor could my father. So why generate more anxiety that I then have to deal with myself? No, I'd rather search in silence.In January 2013, my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 lung and liver cancer. I didn't get to see her while she was still conscious, but my aunt Mary told me that one of the things she had said in her last days was that she wanted me to would find my biological mother. My adoptive mom used to tell me that she watched that show on TV called “People looking for people” (Gente que busca gente) to see if any mother looking for a daughter who looked like me would show up. And when she would tell me this, I always answered : "I already have a mom." In my eyes, my mother was like a little girl with a great inability to regulate her emotions. All my life I protected her from me and my truth, and I wasn't going to stop until the day she left this dimension.Once she died it was time to gather my courage and talk to my dad. In 2015, when I went to Argentina, I asked him if we could have coffee. For 13 years I prepared what I was going to say: "Dad, the grandmothers are getting old now, I can't wait any longer." So that's exactly what I said to him that day in that cafe in the Plaza de Martinez and to my surprise, my dad agreed with me 100 percent. Of my parents, he was always the most reasonable. His response was positive, he also thought it was time and not only that, he ended the conversation by saying, "I don't agree with that ideology," referring to how the military junta decided to settle the question of what to do with the babies born to people they captured, tortured and killed.That was not the reaction I expected from my father. Apparently my mom and dad had time to think during the 13 years of silence. I can imagine that it was probably because the governments that have been in power since I moved to Sweden made the work of the grandmothers visible in a positive way and brought forward the atrocities of the military junta, which made my parents' conscience weigh heavily. So, with my father's permission, I contacted the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo the following year and eventually left the DNA sampleThe result was negative, which meant that they found no DNA match. The first thing I did when I got the news was to call my dad and tell him, "Dad, the DNA results from the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo were negative." It was important that he knew that he no longer had to be afraid, no one would be looking for him to make his life hell. His response was very typical of him: “Is that why you're calling me? What pizza do you want to eat tonight?” The beauty of this is that Simón captured that moment, which, like many moments with my family, when reality beats fiction.After that, my dad never understood why I kept looking: "It makes her feel bad," was always his comment. "I think she needs to leave all that behind." As we continued to search, I learned more and more about how my purchase went, and how the baby buying market is doing. My father never remembered anything. "That happened 40 years ago, it's not important to me," was always his reply. And when I told him what I had found out, he confirmed it. But he never helped me. I think the shame gave him amnesia.The last time I went to Argentina to finish the search, I asked him if he knew why I was there and he said yes. And after visiting the last mother, he asked me: “So? Did you find anything?” "No," I replied in a careless tone, almost as if I didn't even care. When Simon asked him what he thought of my search, my dad replied in the same careless way, "I don't care, she can do whatever she wants, as long as it doesn't hurt her." I could never, ever show pain to my father. I would never, ever express my desire to really know the truth about my origins. As for the documentary, it was his opinion that we were wasting our time: "Who would want to see that?" He always said to Simon and me. I never really wanted to talk about any of it with my family. The lack of harmony and space to have calm conversations made it impossible for me to be honest and tell what was happening inside me. If everything was already so difficult between us, let alone trying to talk to them about a topic as charged as the search for my biological identity. Best to say nothing and act quietly. Better to protect them and protect myself from my truth. | — | ||||||
| 6/8/23 | ![]() Chapter 4-Loneliness and codependency | I have always felt an immense loneliness.The feeling that my life is a mistake and that I should never have been born has haunted me from a young age. I remember that sometimes at night I prayed to God to take me away and at the same time not wanting my family to know this, cause I didn’t want to make them sad. I never questioned myself feeling this way until I was 17. That's when I asked my parents if I could go to a psychologist and basically I have been in some kind of therapy since then. Being a patient has been part of my identity, as one of my best friends would say. Yes it's true. What else would I be if I wasn't just that? Forever broken, forever to be mended. Forever wanting to be someone else. The problem has always the same: my self-esteem. But how did I get here? What happened to me that turned me into this? Or could it be that I chose this role, to be the eternal victim? I mean, sure, we're all a little damaged as a consequence of living on planet Earth, but what has always bothered me the most about my traumas, is having those inner voices that debilitate me every day and make me take decisions that continue to keep me in a place where I am subjected to some sort of abuse. And of course at the same time knowing that it is up to me to remove myself from such a position but still somehow not being able to. Sure, at this point I feel much better than I did a few years ago, healing slowly but surely, one day at a time. But still, I can get so annoyed at myself from time to time and my self-hate sometimes gets a free pass when I can't see the good in me, and when I keep on getting into relationships and situations that confirm that I'm not worth anything. It is frustrating to say the least. All this came to a peak in 2008. I had fallen victim to an obsession with a person who realized how much I admired him and he took the opportunity to suck out all the self-love I had.I felt like he really saw me, and the part of me that had been hiding came finally out into the open to receive love. Of course, all this had to do with music, I finally felt seen. Music, that forbidden place in me that had been systematically criticized by my family, and that had saved my life so many times. Music, my salvation, the only place that for years had helped me escape my reality, until the day I could finally get away for real, when I left for Sweden to start a new life. But by 2008, and so many years of therapy behind me, plus reading the book "Women Who Love Too Much", I had come to the realization that I was powerless and didn't have the ability to get out of the situation I was in. I was very clearly my own worst enemy and did not have any kind of power over my behavior. So that's when I, in August 2008 started attending 12-step meetings. Very… but very slowly, I began to dig into this entanglement of thoughts, feelings and guilt that I carried inside. Although I had already been in therapy many years before, I still hadn't processed so much. Slowly and carefully I broke the denial and saw what was really underneath. But very slowly. Because what lies behind addiction and codependency are monsters with big teeth and sharp claws, followed by the destructive voice of guilt. In Gabor Maté's words "don't ask yourself why the addiction, instead ask yourself why the pain". It's really annoying to see oneself reacting as a co-dependent. It's as if another being suddenly takes control over one's body and before one has time to stop it, it already says words one didn't want to say and moves ones body where one didn't want to move it. When I find myself in what is called "in the race" in the 12 step program, it is very difficult to get in touch with my truth, know what is happening inside me, make decisions, set boundaries or remove myself from abusive situations. The fear of losing the people around me makes me panic and transforms me into the perfect victim. "I just want them to love me and stay by my side", says my inner child, ready to pay any price. The worst part is that she, my inner child, always finds people who remind her of the family she grew up with to see if she now will finally win that love she never got as a child. And always, but ALWAYS loses the game. Because the past has already passed. The only thing I can do is accept it. Accept the reality, the pain and allow myself to cry.This existential loneliness is not only found in us adoptees. Everyone carries it inside. We were born alone and we die alone. And we are the ones who have to see ourselves, feel compassion for our history, give ourselves time to process it, slow down every day for a little while and ask ourselves how we feel, to cure that loneliness. Meditation for example helps a lot.To participate in groups with people who have had or have the same life experiences as well. We have to break the silence. Break the shame of what we feel and think so it doesn't eat us from the inside. After all, we all want to be seen and loved for who we really are. That is universal.But how did it go for us adoptees? Since no one really knows what the human soul is made of, or what our inner core and identity actually consists of, that is, there are many theories but no absolute truth, it is difficult to say how a person is shaped by adoption and how such a process will land in us. Especially nobody knew when I was adopted. It was assumed that it was simply to receive a girl and raise her in a context and that she, like a blank slate (tabula rasa), would grow up to be identical with her adoptive family or at least to become a natural part of it. The first problem probably started already when they went to collect me at the doctor who had me for sale Dr. Celestino Bartucca. According to what my mother told me, they had been promised a blonde girl, but when they came to pick up the baby, it was me instead, brown skinned and black haired. She always said it to me like it was a huge disappointment. How ugly I was. The racism was unbearable.Years later I found out that the day after they bought me, she took me to the neighbor and asked if she didn't think I was "too dark". The neighbor was horrified and told my other neighbor, who has been like an aunt to me, who then told me this story in 2010. And thank God for that, because sometimes I think I made this all up,this racism I was constantly exposed to. I was a blank slate, but with one small detail: my genes. Genes, as I was repeatedly told by my surroundings and family, originated in the slums. An assumption full of racismAnd it is clear, according to the society's values based on class and racism, that they are the worst genes in the gene pool. On top of that, of course it didn't help to have grown up in the German society that blossomed in Buenos Aires after World War II.But the past must be accepted. And I traveled to Buenos Aires in June 2022 to knock on doors, behind one of them could belong to my biological mother to do just that. To see if I could accept my reality. To see if I could stop blaming myself, to see if I could understand what was happening inside me and why I carry this endless loneliness that brings me to my knees before my co-dependency. I went to Buenos Aires to see if I could repair that part of me that I hadn't been able to embrace, because I always felt it was my fault that I had been given away to another family. That I was a mistake, unwanted. I should never have been born. I appeared in this world and since then I have tried to be someone worthy of being loved. I'm trying to prove to everyone and everything that I didn't come here to take someone else's place.That I am a good person, and above all loyal. I don't give up on anyone or anything. Never. I stay until the end even if it destroys me. The Titanic is sinking and I will be the one left in the band playing. And that's why it's worth staying by my side.Because…“Please stay by my side.Please don't let me go mom, this world scares me.Please mom, what lies ahead is going to be very difficult.I promise to be the best daughter if you let me stay by your side."And here I could end this chapter of codependency.But on second thought, I'll give it a few more minutes. Not long ago, I read an article about the relationship between adoptees and substance abuse, depression, suicide or attempted suicide, divorce, the inability to maintain functional emotional relationships, and the onset of certain diseases.Our self-destructive tendencies are obvious. There is a noise within us that we cannot calm or silence. As if we had a cry inside that is inconsolable. But because it's so hard to identify it, accept it, talk about it, the noise becomes a heavy and static void.Of course, we are not all the same. Not all of us feel or experience the same thing. Much depends on the family that adopts us. But the statistics speak for themselves.Pain is inevitable. In this life we will all feel pain at some point. But suffering is not necessary. I found relief in the Codependent Anonymous twelve-step program. And even though my codependency still dominates my days, I try to find love for myself and understanding for that little girl who longs to be loved and will do anything to get people to stay by her side.One day I might be free.In the meantime, I pray the serenity prayer God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference Thank you | — | ||||||
| 6/1/23 | ![]() Chapter 3-Did you find something? | In order to find something, you must first understand what you are looking for. And I don't think I understood what I was looking for until I actually began knocking on doors. Doors behind which might reveal my biological mother.Our identity is not something permanent. There are components of our identity that are constantly changing. And there are also other components that don't change that much. Our biological identity, for example, is one of the parts that doesn't change that much. That is, unless there are significant treatments or interventions done on the body, it is most likely that we will somehow resemble our biological relatives. And that we inherit our genetics from our ancestors. If we simplify the question: Did you find your biological origin? Then the answer is also simple. It's either a yes or a no. But every time I get this question, the answer is not at all simple, because I hear a whole different question in my head. What I hear is: “Now that you better understand who you are and what happened the moment you were born, do you understand why you were abandoned? That is why it is difficult to find a quick answer to this question, because both the question and the answer are really complex. Now, if I would find someone who is biologically related to me, well, that would be wonderful. Because it's something I've never had and really wish I could find. But with that said, that is a much simpler answer. As for the search for my biological identity, it was not clear to me what I was really looking for. I mean, I had a feeling, but I didn't really understand. Thanks to the conversations with a person named Mercedes Yañez, I was able to connect a little bit with what was happening inside me. Understanding the big question was the real journey. What am I looking to heal? What part of me am I missing? And why is it so important?If we assume that my search began the day I suspected that I was the daughter of the disappeared during the dictatorship, then I can say that what I was looking for all along was to accept what happened. And how it happened. And It’s it’s hard to reconstruct the truth when you don't have it. The expectations, the dreams and fantasies that this emptiness feeds from are very powerful. As if my feet can never touch the ground, because there is a bit of truth that I don’t understand. It wasn't so much figuring out who I am, because at my age I already am who I am, instead it was about figuring out why I am.So knocking at the doors of women where one of them could actually be my biological mother gave a face to a fantasy. Although none of them turned out to be my biological mother, they were all my mothers in a way. And in their stories I could see and understand something that without their bravery I would have never understood or found: context. These mothers had never forgotten their daughters. Whatever the reason for the pregnancy, the girl that was born was not just a mistake that had to be corrected by handing it over to other people. That girl always remained in the memory of these mothers. It never left them. The answer I was looking for was largely answered. "How could you let me go? How could you hand me over to strangers who God knows what they would do to me? Was I worth so little? Was it all worth so little to you?But it wasn't like that at all, she didn't just let me go. There were no other options. And The the family that adopted me was not chosen. They were just there, at the right place and the right time. Nothing more. It wasn't personal. I didn't cause it, nor controlled it. Everything just happened that way. Life is a lottery and you get what you get. It's not fair, there are no rules. Or if there are, they are very difficult to understand and it is beyond me to do so. So my answer is, yes, I found a lot. And I understood at least through my journey and experience that mothers do not forget their children. Never. (Ever)And none of this was personal. It has nothing to do with me.But yes, it did happen to me. | — | ||||||
| 5/13/23 | ![]() Chapter 2-Why a documentary? | In order to answer that, it is necessary to start by explaining what happened in 2015. After getting the call from the Argentine Embassy that the Argentine Foreign Ministry was looking for me, I panicked. Panic to the point that I did something I had never done before in my life. I called my boyfriend and told him crying: "They found me, they found me. Please come home." I'm not that kind of person. I'm not usually the one to call people and ask them to come and save me, but that day I had such a severe panic attack that I actually asked for help.This reaction actually had to do with something that happened a few months before, when almost at the end of my annual trip to Buenos Aires, I decided to go to the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo to ask the last questions about what would happen if I left my DNA and they found my biological family.I understand how such questions may seem irrelevant to people in general.I mean, if you compare it to the solving of crimes against humanity and the restoration of my biological identity, everything else should reasonably be irrelevant.But for people like me, who are on this side of history, it is not. So in my opinion, anyone who has something to say about it, if they are not in the same position as we are in, who have to face such decision, please remain silent and try to understand instead.At least for me, it was something I had been thinking about for 13 years, before I could take the big step. And I had actually had already decided that I would do it. On that same trip to Buenos Aires, I sat down with my adoptive father for the first time and told him that it was time. That the grandmothers still searching for the stolen children and grandchildren had grown old and could not wait any longer.He replied that "I also think it is good that you do it" and that "if I had ever suspected that you came from one of these families, I would have never accepted it". My father gave me permission. All this was also happening because of what my mother said two years earlier on her deathbed. Before she fell into a morphine-induced coma, when the cancer was already beyond recovery and there was no turning back, she admitted to my aunt that "I hope Natalie finds her biological mother."We all suspected that I was a stolen child, the daughter of "desaparecidos" or disappeared. By the way, when you talk about the "desaparecidos" or disappeared in Latin America, you mean people who were murdered by the military and police during the dictatorship, whose bodies were never found.So, as I had understood it, there were two things that would happen if my DNA sample matched with any DNA in the stolen children´s gene bank:By law, my last name would be changed to the last name of my biological family A legal process and a police investigation would begin to determine if my father had anything to do with the military dictatorship's systematic theft of babies, which could lead to him having to deal with brutal scrutiny and even receiving a prison sentence.This for me meant mainly two things: 1. My German passport would be invalid (which is very problematic for someone like me who has lived in a European country for 13 years, because as we all know, getting a visa for staying in Europe is not easy as an Argentine)-and secondly and more importantly, perhaps most importantly, my father would have a very tough time.It wasn't an easy decision, but I had already taken it. So I went to The Grandmother of Plaza de Mayo in March 2015 to ask the last questions before returning to Sweden and leaving the DNA at the Argentine embassy there.With such bad luck that I was met by the person in charge of my case who tried to convince me to leave the DNA then and there for an hour and then, when he finally realized that I would not give in to it, he threatened me that they would force me to leave it anyway.A psychopath in the place where they were supposed to be working to repair the damage caused by the psychopaths of the military junta in 1976. If these are the good guys and they treat me like this, I can only imagine how the bad guys would treat me. "Argentina is truly the upside down kingdom" I thought and swore to never come near the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo ever again.The worst part, as always, was that no one believed me. How could there be such a psychopath working there? Could it have had something to do with my attitude? Hadn't I just imagined what happened? Me being so sensitive... And after all, if I was still thinking about leaving the DNA anyway, why did it matter to leave it there or in Sweden?It mattered a lot. Leaving the DNA because it is my own decision, within a context where I am leaving it because I am part of an historical event, where I had no power at all and I was a victim along with my mother of the decision of a group of people, and then ended up in a family that had nothing to do with me, mattered a whole lot. I was giving up the identity that I had built for 38 years and my dad's love in exchange for the truth. If that was the price to pay, then at least may it be my own decision.I went back to Sweden and closed that door. But they found me. So I went to the embassy and spoke to the judge who was in charge of my case. Basically he told me that they wanted my DNA, that the case had been opened and that if I didn't leave my DNA willingly, they would have to send the Swedish police to search my house and obtain the samples.I told him to give me a month to think about it.I needed a month, because I was traveling to Argentina for my dad's 75th birthday. I needed to get in and out of the country without being hassled. He said yes.But a week later they called me from the embassy saying that they already had the papers and that I should come by to leave the DNA.They told me that the judge had told them that I agreed.That's when I had enough and understood that if I didn’t document everything, no one would ever believe what happened. Also, that in these times where everything is on social media, people tend to behave when they are in front of a camera.So that's why I contacted Simon, a friend of my boyfriend. Simón was studying script writing at that time, and already filming documentaries. He found my story very interesting so he asked me if he could make a documentary of my search. I told him yes. As long as he filmed all these procedures so I could protect myself at least a little bit from all the abuse.If that was the case, I agreed to be a part of his documentary and Simon and I started filming. Because if there’s one thing we both had learned was without witnesses, there is no truth. | — | ||||||
| 5/13/23 | ![]() Chapter 1-When did my search begin? | The simple answer would be in 2015, when The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo contacted me to leave my DNA, to see if there was a match with their DNA bank . For those who don’t know who they are, Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo is a human rights organization with the goal of finding the children stolen and illegally adopted during the 1976–1983 Argentine military dictatorship.It happened like this: On August 14th, 2015, I received a call from the Argentine embassy in Sweden, saying that they were looking for me from the Argentine Foreign Ministry. When I asked for what matter, they told me they couldn't tell me, but they asked me if I was willing to attend a meeting with them.To make a long story short, my case was taken to court and an official investigation had started. Apparently they had received several anonymous reports at Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, saying that I possibly was one of the missing children of the dictatorship. Since time had passed and several reports had been made, they had to act upon it.That's how, after talking to the judge, who explained to me that if I didn't leave a DNA sample willingly, they would have to send the Swedish police to my house and get some DNA samples, I finally left it willingly on December the 7th 2015.What that all really meant to me is too long to explain, so for now I'll leave it there.The more interesting question is perhaps, since when have I been curious to know my biological identity?That is a bit more complex to answer. Because at no time did I feel an impulse to find out where my genes came from.Since I was a little girl I always heard my family say, specially my mother that my genes came from the slums. Since my skin was darker than my brother's (also adopted) and I laughed harder than him, and didn't show any kind of sophistication, I obviously came from the slums. I was obviously, according to their world view, of a lower breed. These were their racist assumptions. Racism in Argentina is rooted in colonialism that was of course very evident in the parts of Buenos Aires where Germans from the Second World War moved.This so-called truth was reflected everywhere. At school, for example, I remember that at the age of 6 some boys approached me at recess and said: “You are brown” Which obviously, according to them, wasn’t something good. And that continued throughout my school time. It was always clear to me that I did not belong to the so called superior white race. I had slum genes. And it didn’t help the matter that I was going to a German school in Argentina. So why look for more? To have it all confirmed? No. Society had already given me a place and a status and what I wanted most was to flee from that past and that truth.Until one day I was presented with the opportunity to belong to another truth, or another reality. To another breed.Instead of being the daughter to a slum-person,I could be the daughter of a revolutionary who fought for a better and more just world. A hero who fell into the hands of the enemy. And if that was the case, a totally different blood would run through my veins. And my genes would be brave and courageous. I could be the daughter of a martyr, of a fighter, of a symbol of the truth.So, how is it that I dared to believe in a new truth and begin the search? It went like this:One day I was invited to a wedding. The woman getting married was the daughter to the mom that told my mom twenty two years earlier, that there was a baby girl who was at a doctor and needed to be adopted. Basically thanks to her, my parents adopted me. I went to the wedding with the boyfriend I had at the time. Once there, we noticed that most of the men were dressed in some police or military looking uniforms. I noticed that, not because I had ever suspected that I was the daughter of the disappeared, but because it seemed ridiculous to me to dress in a uniform for a wedding. As I said before, I never thought I could belong to that small and very special marvel of babies stolen by the dictatorship. It had been made clear to me through their class hatred and racist assumptions, that I was a product of a lower social class and therefore I had no sophistication whatsoever. My existence was of no transcendence. So it didn't dawn on me until the day after, when my boyfriend told me that his father had asked him if the people who were the adoption contact with my family, had something to do with the dictatorship.From that day on I never had peace again. It was so obvious. I already knew what I had to do. It was as if the history of the entire country suddenly hung on my shoulders.There was only one thing I could do: Go to the Grandmother of Plaza de Mayo.I finally did it. It took a few months, but I went. I don't remember the exact date, but I know it was before I moved to Sweden the 9th of June 2002 and after the rape I survived the 7th of August 2001I remember standing at the door of the building with my legs shaking. So scared, but I did it anyway.And that's how the search began.Suddenly I could be someone else. Suddenly I was a special person, a national treasure, the balm that could heal a nation's wounds. The living proof that the truth cannot be killed.That’s how, for at least a few years I got to have new genes.I was someone else. | — | ||||||
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