The Three Stolen Children

The Three Stolen Children


I have had a fantastic upbringing here in Sweden with my adoptive parents. It was in 2001 that I decided to look for my mother in Chile. I came into contact with a woman here in Varberg, who in return knew an older woman named Olivia who lived in Temuco. They found that this woman called Olivia that had lived in Sweden before, but that she moved back to Temuco. We got in contact with her and she promised me to help to look for my mother in Temuco.

One night Olivia called me to tell me  she’d probably found my mother, that she worked as a cleaner at a school in Cuncon. To be sure, Olivia, with the help of the school’s principal, asked her a few questions because at that school there were several member of staff called Rosa, which my mother is also called. The questions that the principal and Olivia asked mother corresponded precisely her children who had been taken away from her. My mother broke down of course, but the principal and staff helped her.

In the winter of 2002, I went back to Chile to meet our mother with my two biological brothers. During the time we stayed in Chile, we lived temporarily at Olivia, who become our interpreter. Neither me or my siblings were able to speak fluent Spanish. My mother Rosa still living in Mapuche, the Cunco area, located a few miles outside Temuco. Many in the village, especially the elderly, had heard of the 3 missing children. It was very unclear how they had disappeared, with it turned out to be me and my brothers.

Our dad was hard alcoholic and one day he disappeared from us. Mother that was now alone and did find it hard  to support us. She had then heard of an organisation that might help her to take care of us briefly, the court of minors agreed fo a half year. During that time, Rosa would have a new home and a job, but she would come there with money every month because that money would be for food and shelter for me and my brothers. Because Mama could not read or write, she asked the people to read the contents of the papers she would have signed for, what Rosa did not know they cheated. It was probably adoptive paper she signed for instead. She signed everything with her own thumbprint. The court pretended that nothing had happened and my mother left there without knowing what she had done.

Every month, my mother paid a so-called ‘rent’ for me and my brothers, and this she continued for half a year, though we had already been sent to Sweden. When my mother found out everything, she was completely crushed and together with her three sisters they tried to look for us for several years. They went to the police and asked for help. They paid in the form of money, some kisses and hens that the policemen apparently would slaughter for themselves. But even that was in vain, so the policemen wandered in mom shut up too.

Mom has 3 sisters, one of them is Maria, she then told us when we came to Chile that mom had tried to commit suicide because we were not with her anymore. The turn for mom and her life later became a bit better when she found a man named Jose and they got a son named Christian. It has never been a secret that we existed for Christian when mom has told him everything.

Actually, there is so much more I can write about, but in order to make a long story short, we will probably be satisfied with this so far. If there is anything else / more you would like to know about, just contact me.

Cecilia Liljedahl


Read here about their recent family-reunion (Sep2019)

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