Peter Bönzli

“I have always had people in my life who encouraged and challenged me.”

Peter Bönzli was born in Bern in 1947. After the death of his father, his mother lost parental authority over her four children. One day, two men took Peter Bönzli away while he was playing in the street and brought him to a transitory children’s home. At the age of five, he was taken to the boys’ reform facility “Brünnen” in Bümpliz.

The first year he spent with the home director’s sons and enjoyed a lot of freedom, but this came to an end when school started: henceforth work had priority and there was little time for school. His younger brother Kurt was placed in the same facility. Together they waited for their mother to visit once a month – often in vain. Sometimes the two brothers saw their sisters, who were placed in the adjacent girls’ home, across the fence.

After finishing school, the boys from “Brünnen” were distributed among various jobs. Peter Bönzli was sent to a postman in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. After a year he moved in with his mother in Basel. He had to cancel a trial apprenticeship as a lab assistant after a work accident in 1964. After that he started to train as a salesman which was difficult for him due to his poor schooling in the facility. His professional career led him from various jobs as a salesman to business consulting. In 1992, Peter Bönzli founded his own company which he sold in 2004 and took early retirement.

Julia Meier*

“Relationships at eye level and with respect are important to me, and they are possible.”

Julia Meier* was born in 2001. Her mother grew up with a foster family in Switzerland, her father is from Cuba. When her parents separated, Julia was 5 years old. Before that she had witnessed her parents’ relationship problems: when they argued, she was in her room and heard everything. Julia visited her father regularly until she was ten years old. Then she broke off the contact, because her father pressured her again and again and was never pleased with her.

The first years after the separation of her parents were not easy for Julia. She was dyslexic and her school performances depended heavily on her wellbeing. After her mother’s break down which had led to the separation from Julia’s father and after the subsequent divorce it took time for the mother to regain the capacity and enough strength to respond to her daughter’s needs. During this time professional psychological support from specialists was important for Julia Meier. In the years that followed, mother and daughter found a common path and Julia Meier was able to express her needs better and better. Today she has a good and close relationship with her mother, and they can discuss the experiences in their family that span the generations together.

*The name was replaced by a pseudonym.

Tanja Meier*

“Already my mother and my grandmother did not grow up at home.”

Tanja Meier was born in1965 in a region called Zurich Oberland. The mother was only 18 years old and not married when her first child, Tanja Meier’s brother, was born. A year later the daughter was born. Tanja Meier’s father came from Sardinia. At eleven months, she was placed in a foster family that was a member of a pietistic free church and stayed there until she was 25 years old. Her brother was pushed from one place to another.

In comparison to her brother’s childhood, she had fared well, says Tanja Meier. But her foster mother took her aggressions out on her and constantly devalued Tanja’s mother and grandmother. This influenced the girl: she didn’t want to become like her mother. Tanja Meier and her brother were not the first in their family not to grow up at home – her mother, her mother’s siblings as well as her grandmother had already been placed in care after the death of one of the parents. Tanja saw her biological father only on visiting Sundays. On these occasions he molested her and when she did not want to visit him anymore, her guardian threatened to send her to a children’s home.

When Tanja suffered a breakdown at the age of 16, the foster parents declined the support of an educational psychologist. It was not until 2017, that Tanja knew why her health still was poor at times: she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. As an adult Tanja Meier also experienced psychological violence in her marriage. The father of her daughter tried, among other things, to deprive her of her child. After another breakdown in 2004, she found the strength to leave her marriage in 2007 and to build a new life together with her daughter.

*The name was replaced by a pseudonym.

Gabriela Pereira

“We children were rendered stateless and our family was torn apart.”

Gabriela Pereira was born in 1964 in Wohlen in the canton of Aargau. Her mother was from Portugal, her father was Swiss. The parents planned to marry. Nevertheless, at the age of 18 months, Gabriela Pereira was placed in an orphanage that was led by nuns from Menzingen. By the time Gabriela Pereira reached the age of 17, a foster family and three Catholic institutions had followed. During the time she spent at the Protestant “home for difficult children” in Freienstein (ZH), she was, like many other institutionalised children, hired out to farmers during the holidays. In all places Gabriela Pereira experienced violence and repeatedly sexual abuse.

When Gabriela Pereira’s father died in 1967, the social authorities denied her access to the inheritance and the money he had deposited as security for the children. Because Gabriela Pereira and her brother had been rendered stateless and lacked the financial means, a departure to Portugal was impossible. It only was when she was a teenager that she was granted a Swiss passport. Only thanks to her mother, who always managed to bring her daughter back home and to wrap the bad experiences into stories with humour, Gabriela Pereira managed to retain her inner liveliness to this day.

After the death of her mother (2003), Gabriel Pereira intensified her personal reassessment and became politically involved. “As long as survivors are left alone with the results of traumatisation, have hardly any financial means to ease consequential health damages and continue to be exposed to administrative coercive measures, there is no reassessment for the survivors,” says Gabriela Pereira.

Rita Brunner

“There is always a balance in life. One cannot take without also giving.” (Menuhin)

Rita Brunner was born in 1966 in Zurich. She never really knew her father, and her mother was overwhelmed with the two daughters. At the age of 6 weeks, Rita Brunner was taken to a nurse’s home in Zurich and later, together with her older sister, to a private children’s home in Ossingen. The home was closed because the operators allegedly belonged to a cult.

Under the pretext of going on an excursion, the two girls were taken to the “Kinderdörfli Rathausen” (LU). Rita Brunner was three and half years at the time and spent the next 12 years there. She had good and bad experiences in the facility, always depending on the actual educators. In addition to collective punishment, she also experienced psychological and physical violence. Hunger, fear and loneliness often accompanied her, especially in the evenings.

After completing her compulsory schooling, Rita was released at the age of 15 and placed in a position as a groom. The path to an independent life was not easy for Rita Brunner. During this time, she often thought of suicide. Then, for the first time, she met a person who wanted to know who she was and what she had experienced, who listened to her and whom she could trust. In her mid-20’s, Rita Brunner made a conscious decision for life.

On her way she met time and again people who encouraged her and supported her, professionally as well as privately. In the beginning Rita Brunner didn’t want to have a family on her own because she did not want to put anyone at risk of maybe having to live a life like she had. Meanwhile she is married nevertheless and has a grown-up son. Her husband refers to her as their tower of strength.

Today Rita Brunner is a local councillor and in her work she tries to change things positively in small ways. In particular, she tries to avoid that people who are in need of support today are violated in their integrity: she pays special attention to old-age and nursing homes.

Jasmin Schweizer*

“Every child has the right to education.”

Jasmin Schweizer* was born in the city of Zurich in 1957. Her parents and the whole family were looking forward to the family addition. Jasmin Schweizer was often ill, fought against infections and often had to go to the children’s hospital. Thus, she missed out on subject material in school and therefore found it increasingly difficult to follow the lessons. At the age of 14, Jasmin Schweizer was taken to a home in the Romandie for the first time. A year later she was taken to the Rudolf Steiner home “Montolieux” above Montreux (VD) where children of influential parents also lived. After an attempted sexual attack, the teenager fled. Another placement in a Protestant daughters institute in Lucens followed.

Jasmin Schweizer’s lack of schooling made it difficult to find an apprenticeship. In 1975 she began an apprenticeship as a nurse’s aide at the Cantonal Hospital Münsterlingen. The student nurses were housed in the nurses’ home of the nearby psychiatric clinic, where Jasmin Schweizer was forced to take pills with strong side effects. The extensive test series were carried out under the responsibility of the head physician Roland Kuhn – without the consent of the persons tested and despite the already existing ethical principles regarding medical research on humans. When Jasmin Schweizer refused to take the medication, the head physician threatened her with compulsory institutionalisation. Her father took the young woman home.

Henceforth, numerous health setbacks made her professional life difficult. Jasmin Schweizer is also affected by the disease endometriosis. To support other persons affected, she has founded a self-help group. She continued her own education and has found a way to deal with the experiences she has had, even though it still is a struggle.

*The name was replaced by a pseudonym.

MarieLies Birchler

“Sometimes I lack the words.”

MarieLies Birchler was born in Zurich in 1950, the first of five siblings. In 1951, the authorities brought her and her younger brother to the orphanage in their home community Einsiedeln (SZ). Both children were undernourished, sick and neglected. In this orphanage an eleven-year ordeal of violence and fear under the regime of the nuns from Ingenbohl started for MarieLies Bircher.

As a bedwetter and with her bright nature, she had a particularly hard time. She was pushed under water, beaten up badly, locked in the attic for days. Exposures, humiliations, insults and the accusation of being possessed by the devil dominated her everyday life. As she grew older, MarieLies Birchler started to fight back, until, at the age of 13, her guardian picked her up and took her to the reform school “Burg” in Rebstein (SG). There she got better. However, it was only at the reform school “Waldburg” in St. Gallen, where she was sent to in 1968, that she was able to build up trust to an educator for the first time.

At the age of 20, MarieLies Birchler was released from guardianship. She trained to become a psychiatric nurse and later worked in leading functions. In 1978, her brother Hanspeter committed suicide, a heavy blow for the young women. MarieLies Birchler kept silent about her childhood for the most part until her numerous traumas caught up with her and made her ill. She suffered several breakdowns, could no longer work and had to apply for a disability pension.

When she was better again, she supported families and their children and continues to do so to this day. MarieLies Birchler has also been involved for several years in the reassessment of compulsory social measures. She does this for all those who cannot or no longer can speak for themselves. She is part of the project team “Our faces – Our stories”.

Christian Tschannen

“They told us: ‘you are nothing, you can’t do anything, nothing will come of you!’”

Christian Tschannen was born in 1971 in the canton of Solothurn. After his parents divorced, the social welfare office got involved and as a result the mother agreed to a temporary placement in care of her children. Christian and his older brother, Benjamin, were sent to Schangnau (BE) to a farm in the Oberemmental where they had to work hard, slept in a small, poorly heated room, were beaten and abused. At the age of nearly nine, Christian suffered from first symptoms of a rheumatic disease which caused him more and more pain.

In 1986, at the age of 15, Christian was placed in the “Jugenddorf” in Bad Knutwil (LU) where he was forced into a carpenter apprenticeship, from which he dropped out. He also experienced violence in the “Jugenddorf” and in the last year was denied medical care and medication. Christian was released in 1989 and completed an apprenticeship as a car-body painter. Due to his illness and his physical impairments, he was registered with the disability pension for retraining. His request to follow a training that took into account his health condition and abilities was not heard by the authorities that decided on disability pensions.

At the age of 24, Christian reoriented himself professionally and studied art at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. Among other things, he was Artist in Residence of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia in Cape Town and has exhibited several times in Switzerland and abroad. With the first official records in 2014, his work changed radically and now sheds light on current affairs. Christian is committed to the reassessment of compulsory social measures and also wants to focus on today’s problematic issues in child and youth welfare services.