I had always known I was adopted, but it wasn’t until I turned 18 when my parents decided it was time to give me my adoption papers. Until that time, I hadn´t really been very concerned about my adoption. I am a bit darker than the average Dutchman, and I didn’t look like my parents, who were light-skinned Dutch people, but I never was discriminated against or treated differently by my family or friends. I had great parents, loyal friends, and nothing to really think about, or so I thought.

I had never given my adoption papers a thought nor had I wondered what might be contained in them. When my parents presented them to me, I flipped through them, but casually, just out of curiosity. It was a thick document, written in Greek, without an English translation. Suddenly my eye caught the word ‘leprosy’ and I sat up a little straighter. I read and reread the text, which stated that my biological mother, at the time of my adoption, was hospitalized for leprosy.

I was utterly shocked and asked my parents for explanations. Leprosy? What do you mean leprosy? How did she get this and where from? It actually still existed at that time? My mother told me that they had no more information than what was in the documents and said that my birth mother had not been present at my final “handing over,” because she was in the hospital being treated for the disease. My parents never met her nor had they seen her. I knew then and there that I wanted to go back one day to find out exactly what happened. This was also the very moment when I decided to learn Greek.

I was born in 1959 and was one-and-a-half years old when my parents adopted me in June 1961. They adopted me at the same time as my brother, Peter, who was three years old. Peter is not my biological brother and was from another family in Corfu. Ill and the second youngest in his family, his parents were unable to take care of him. After having spent some time in the care of different foster mothers, he eventually came to the Baby Center Mitera, from where he and I would both be adopted. Peter lived there for only two months.