Radio Media Naranja invites Peter Osendarp (CAW)

FROM THE DESK OF PETER OSENDARP

INTERVIEW OF JOSÉ ZEPEDA WITH PETER OSENDARP

Wednesday, August the 14, I had – in Spanish – an interview with the journalist José Zepeda from the radio and t.v. Producciones Media Narranja. The interview was held in Hilversum.

It was about my story as an adoptive father of a Chilean child, adopted in 1977. The conversation focused on the inconsistencies between what we heard in 1976/77 and officially read about the child before the adoption, and what was told and revealed in 2005 when a meeting with the biological mother and her family took place in Santiago de Chile. 

Gertrudis Kuijpers, then director of a Home for Minors in the Chilean capital, is the main player in this history. I told the interviewer that in 1977 it was mentioned – also in the legal documents – of a “foundling” or orphan, left on the public highway and that nothing was known about the biological parents. 

While in 2004/2005 the name of the mother appeared to be well-known in the archive of Gertrudis K. Her own correspondence also showed that in her Children’s Home Las Palmas in 1976 the father was known, at least his profession: police officer. The child intended for our adoption was therefore nicknamed “little agent”. 

After the meeting with the biological mother in Santiago of our adopted child with his sister, organized by Gertrudis, they took a letter from Chile with the biological mother: addressed to us, his adoptive parents. Among other things, my translation of this states the following: “They took my child from me and then considered deceased. They threatened me if I would inquire or continue to ask about the death of my little child, they would kill me. ” I described to the interviewer my bewilderment and confusion about things. 

He also questioned my appraisal of her attitude toward the military dictatorship of Pinochet about which she never spoke. Moreover, I explained to him that she is usually referred to or seen as a nun or a monastic sister; but from an official statement of her own 

I know that she is a “secular religious” associated with a community of Benedictines in Montevideo, the capital of Urugay. A secular religious is NOT a nun, not a convent sister, that is, with monastic vows of voluntary poverty, obedience to the abbess / mother superior and celibate chastity. Who knows this ?? 

For me, it was about finding the truth, in this interview, under the motto “Honesty is the best policy.” That is my moral duty.

Peter Osendarp