Mirjam Hunze grew up in the quiet Dutch town of Lunteren, but always felt too loud, too different, too curious in her strict Protestant household. She was 10 years old when she found out she had been adopted from Chile, sparking a lifelong quest to find her biological family. Hunze’s Chilean birth certificate and passport listed her Dutch adoptive name, with the fields for her biological parents and place of birth conspicuously crossed out.
Hunze’s Dutch adoptive parents – who were unable to conceive biologically – had been given the number of a Dutch woman, Gertie Vogel, who lived in Chile and told them she could secure a baby. They paid an undisclosed amount for Mirjam, who arrived in Amsterdam on 19 October 1972, brought over by a KLM flight attendant.
