Looking for the missing Hunke's - November 1998 to Oct 2009

Did you ever wonder what our purpose is in this life? We grow up – some happy, some not so happy, get jobs, have friends and partners, some have children, we get old, sick and die. In between all those times that keep us very busy, we have time to think and ponder the question “Why am I here?”

My family has been disjointed to say the least, as many families are and its nothing new but I‘ve had an amazing journey these past 11 or so years which I need to write down and sharing the journey may give hope to those out there in similar situations.

I started looking for family members who had been lost for over 40 years.

I knew they were out there somewhere – but where, and how to start??

Why I started this journey in the first place, I can’t really explain but I just felt compelled to do so.

Ok this has all happened before – but this story is all the more surprising because, due to a car accident when I was 26, I’ve lost most of my childhood memories– I couldn’t remember the children I wanted to find – I had known them well when I was a child as our families were very close.

Suddenly when I reached middle age I felt a deep sense of loss and knew that I needed to look for the lost family members. I needed to know how they were getting along with their lives and I wanted them to know they had not been forgotten. I first asked anyone left in my family but nobody seem to know where they had got to. My sister Evelyn told me that she had tried at some point to find them but wasn’t successful.

I kept thinking - as much as they were lost to us – we too, were lost to them.

Did they ever think of us as we think of them? Did they ever wonder what had become of us? Have they ever tried to find us? I needed the answers to these questions. I needed them, did they need me?

Over the years people often said “Why bother?”, “What’s so important?”, “You’re wasting your time”. Only those who know where all their family members are, would make such derogatory comments and couldn’t possibly empathize with this type of situation.

Some people, thankfully most people, are either born with empathy or learn it from their family and friends. It is one of the most important developments of the human psyche.

The moral of this story has to be “If you have a desire to do something, then don’t give up!” – let me show you what I mean.

At the beginning of this story there is quite a bit of family background in order to understand the journey I was willing to take, and here it is – warts and all.

My Austrian mother Eva, at the age of 16 with her younger brother Kurt, came out with their parents to the Congo in Africa on holiday.

There at that primitive dusty place, Eva met a Swedish gold digger called Alf who was much older than her and who swept her off her tiny feet. Eva’s mother tried her hardest to split them up, so they eloped and married in a Boma in Kitwe, Zambia, back then called Northern Rhodesia. They produced seven children. I’m about in the middle.

My mother’s brother Kurt met and married Lily a beautiful French girl living in Albertville, Congo. They had three children in Albertville Bobby, Ricky and Anita, before moving to Kitwe where another child, Ingrid was born.

Kitwe was a really small town with a thriving population made up of foreigners from all over the world who had made it to Africa – a mish mash of languages mixed with English making up the then British Colony; everyone knew everyone’s business.

Men were rough and tough, worked hard and drank hard.

Women didn’t seem particularly feminine back then having to put up with quite a hard dusty life in harsh living conditions in the middle of Africa.

There was no TV back then – so days and nights were filled with the simple things in life like visiting family and friends, hunting – yes back then most people thought animals were there just to be killed, working, fishing, drinking, eating and lust –fidelity seemed to be of little importance.

My long suffering Mother, Eva married at such a young age, seemed to accept her fate as a drinker’s wife and brought up her rapidly increasing brood with as much love as she could muster. By all accounts she was a tiny, gentle woman who was much loved by the community –it seemed everyone knew and respected her.

After producing 7 children, she found out that her husband had a liaison with Lily, her own brother’s wife. She must have been shocked to the core at having been betrayed so badly and yet the marriage appeared to continued as normal. Maybe it wasn’t normal - I can’t remember. You know the adage ‘til death do us part’? - in those days marriages were for the duration and extra marital affairs didn’t seem to break the vow?

Lily and Alf’s union produced one child, and she was named Ingrid Eva.

I can’t even imagine what was going through Lily’s mind to give this new baby the second name of Eva, after my Mother’s name Eva.

Can you imagine how Eva felt when she found out – I can’t!

So Ingrid is my half-sister. She is also half sister to Bobby, Ricky and Anita – all very complicated and confusing.

Kurt was furious and our family became “the enemy”.

My sister Evelyn reported often enough to her daughter Katherine, that Kurt hated her and was always rude with his nasty comments.

Kurt was infuriated believing that Anita wasn’t his either decided to punish Lily. In 1959 he took his two sons, Bobby 8 and Ricky 6 away from her and flew them to Belgium. Could people in those days just steal the children away? Domestic problems back then were not of any great concern to the authorities. If there were problems between wives and husbands, it was up to them to sort them out.

On her side, Lily hooked up with a boyfriend and left Zambia with her two daughters to live in Durban, South Africa.

The story goes that the boyfriend was a vicious bully and was absolutely horrible to the two little girls especially the youngest and most vulnerable, Ingrid. Putting her in a boiling bath and throwing her across the room, were just a couple of the many things he did to make life hell. Lily was a beautiful woman who could have had any man, yet she chose to stay with the man who abused her daughters and even married him, so I’ve heard.

One of the only good things that Lily did in her miserable life was contact my Father Alf and told him of the abuse going on. As a result of this contact from Lily, Alf sent his oldest daughter Erika and her husband David to Durban to fetch Ingrid – she was three years old at the time. The child was taken away screaming for her Mother and her sister Anita. This incident must have been extremely traumatic for all involved.

If the abuse was going on against both of her daughter’s – why was Anita left with Lily?

So there was Lily – having given birth to four children with three of them just taken away – she had only one left to look after, Anita age 6.

The ever maternal Eva, well aware by this stage that Ingrid was the result of an affair her husband Alf had with Lily, her brother’s wife – took Ingrid in without another thought, loved and wanted to adopt her. I am not sure if that adoption ever went through – too long ago, too much water under the bridge and nobody alive anymore that can pass on that knowledge.

Our half-sister Ingrid lived with us for about 3 to 4 years until my Mother Eva died in Feb 1964, when she fell 3,000 feet to the ground while parachuting. Eva had taken up sky diving which she loved for the silence it afforded her from the time she jumped out of the plane until she reached land. February was a beautiful day with mild temperatures and sunny skies. Ingrid 6 years old and my brother Charles 11 were playing at the flying club when the plane went up and Eva came down.

Eva’s husband Alf was on a fishing trip at the time of Eva’s death but was located by family and friends and brought back to Kitwe. They had been married around 26 years.

Alf’s mind deteriorated, he became helpless and weak and almost incapable of looking after himself and all the children, his hair turned white almost overnight, he wallowed in self-pity, he drank and tried to make it through the days and nights.

Alf’s had a married-with-no-children secretary, who didn’t think that Alf could take care of such a young child and offered to look after and then to adopt Ingrid. This is what happened. Ingrid was adopted, much to the shock of the remaining family members who had not only lost a Mother so tragically, but their father became almost totally helpless and now their sister was taken away.

So there is the background – now the search for Bobby, Ricky and Anita.

Looking for Bobby

My search for Bobby began in 1998

I started by trying to figure out where the brothers could possible have got to.

All I knew for certain is that they had been taken to Belgium.

I didn’t even consider searching the names of Bobby and Ricky, but instead I did an internet search on all the Hunke’s in Belgium in the telephone directory. There were quite a few, Hunke being a common German name. Their email addresses weren’t listed in those days or if they were somewhere, I didn’t know how to find out what they were. I bought postcards and hand writing in each one asked anyone with information of my missing cousins to contact me. From memory, I received one or two replies from kind people who said they knew nothing of these people.

I then did another search on Hunke’s elsewhere in Germany and wrote to all of those addresses as well, with the same results.

Well, this wasn’t going well, it was time consuming and getting expensive but I decided that once started, I had to continue.

If they had gone to Germany and decided to immigrate – where would they go? I figured that the most likely destination would be America.

Many searches later afforded me many more Hunke’s that I also wrote to.

Nope, I decided, they hadn’t gone to the States.

My next step was to search their names. So in my memory, there was their Father, my uncle Kurt Hunke, the oldest boy Bobby – who I figured was a nickname for Robert. There was also the younger boy called Ricky that I thought was short for Richard – in fact, I was wrong Ricky’s name was Erich.

So armed with their names – I started searching through various search engine’s – tried them all typing in their names. Not being very knowledgeable with internet searching back then - I know now I was doing the wrong thing completely. After being unsuccessful for a while, I then started typing on one name at a time. This was a long process and I had their nick names and what I thought was their real names.

Different searches for different days. One day Bobby Hunke; another day Robert Hunke. Another day Ricky; and the next, Richard. Yet other searches for their father Kurt. These searches took many months and those months turned into years. At times I had four search engines on my screen at once and typed in the names in each. Every Bobby page came up, every Robert, every Hunke, every Ricky, every Richard and every Kurt.

I also didn’t know to type names within inverted commas, so my searches resulted in thousands upon thousands of pages with those names. I think I may have looked at them all. For hours on end, reading and eliminating pages. I got to know a lot of the pages by memory and although I tried to not look at a page twice, doubling up was inevitable. You cannot imagine the hours I dedicated to these tasks and the more unsuccessful I was, the more determined I was to continue.

I emailed thousand of people from links of pages in the hope of finding anyone who knew these people.

The feeling of frustration was palpable, but the feeling of loss for these people was worse – so on I went, day after day like a robot.

One day 4th September 2004, I did my usual entry into Google this time and chose the name Robert Hunke for that day. On that particular day, I also decided I would only go to German pages. I wasn’t able to read the pages but on some, there is a link to translate the pages and I relied heavily on that help. I may have been on the 10th German link that day – a Council page in a town called Neckarsulm that listed its employees and posted their photographs as well.

Scrolling down to Robert Hunke I saw a photograph of a middle aged man with glasses, large moustache, white shirt, suit and tie. (picture on the last page)

I sat looking at his picture for a while and his eyes seemed vaguely familiar. I remembered my Mother Eva’s eyes being that colour. And that straight perfect nose – looked a bit like my memory of Uncle Kurt.

There was no contact link to this man in particular, but from that page I found a comments or complaints link where I had to fill in an online form, but that was only in German. After a few failed attempts I managed to type the following message to whoever gets these notes or complaints:
I am trying to trace my cousin Robert Hunke who left with his brother Rickie from Africa to live with family in Belgium. Please if you know him- to please write to me. His Parents names Lillie and Kurt

This was just another amidst thousands of previous emails so, although hoping as I did with every email, I wasn’t going to get upset if yet another enquiry went into cyberspace unanswered.

On the 10th September 2004, I received a reply from Bobby:

Good Morning Esther—last night I cannot sleep. I think it is a dream.

Yes, at long last I had found the missing Robert. He told me that Kurt had died of a heart attack in 1995 working as a doorman in Munich whilst Ricky who’s name I then found out was actually Erich, had committed suicide 20 years previously.

Robert was overjoyed and he couldn’t believe that all these years of having thought of himself as the only surviving Hunke, actually had a huge family that surrounded the globe.

Bobby told me that he and Ricky had been dropped off with strangers in a foreign Country and Kurt went back to Kitwe where he divorced Lily and went on with his life as if nothing was wrong.

The family he took the children to in Belgium, happened to be the Lily’s parent. After 2 years they decided that they didn’t want to look after Bobby and Ricky any more and took them to an orphanage in Brugge—can you imagine? It was then1961—Bobby was 10 years old and Ricky was 8.

Kurt had visited Germany many times, before finally moving to Munich, so he was well aware of the fact that his small children were living in an orphanage but left them there for years and years.

Years later they were adopted by an on-again off-again girlfriend of Kurt’s who loved the children and wanted to give them a better life. Inge Streib

Nobody was aware of these sad stories and they made me feel despair that my Uncle Kurt, whom I had loved, could cause such anguish to so many people.

I emailed Bobby “You have a sister, Bobby living in South Africa” - I gave him Ingrid’s email.

I emailed Ingrid “I found your Brother, Ingrid” I gave her Bobby’s email.

Oh sweet success after such a long time – it felt so good.

Now I said to both Ingrid and Bobby “Now where the hell is Anita – we have to find her.”





Looking for Anita

I soon discovered that looking for a girl is much harder than finding a boy because the probability is that she has changed her name through marriage.

I also considered the fact that Lily might have married her stupid boyfriend whose surname was Macrae.

Years ago I belonged to a website for ex-Rhodesians. I joined under my maiden name so that if anyone was looking, they could find me and posted a “Lost and Looking for Lily and Anita” notice on that site. Ingrid did the same.

Lily had come from Albertville in the Belgian Congo, so I went to any Albertville site that I could find – damn – these were in French – here I had to go again - translating the sites. I always was useless with languages.

The trouble I found was that most of these particular sites didn’t have the “translate this site” link, so for those I used Babel Fish. I poured over photos in the hope of finding a familiar face

On those Albertville sites, I posted “Lost” messages “looking for Lily and her daughter Anita”. Bobby did the same.

To this day, I still get French junk email.

As I had found Bobby on Google – it became my favourite search engine and I searched for the name Anita Hunke and for her Mother Lily.

I found quite a few names and was quite elated “Boy this was pretty easy” I thought, until I realised that the name wasn’t that unusual. My search also brought up every Anita and every Hunke page as well. By this time I did know you could type in inverted commas “Anita Hunke” but I thought perhaps if Anita had made an entry and had changed her name I wouldn’t be able to find her.

I started emailing all the links on all the pages of Anita’s’ – I did receive many replies but of course none were her. Those called Anita Hunke turned out to be other people. There was a journalist, an architect and artists amongst other professions but all drew blanks.

Not knowing that Lily has passed away in the 70’s I search for her as well. I thought perhaps that if Anita had written a website and mentioned her Mother, I could find her that way. Also how many spelling of Lily can you figure – Lily, Lilly, Lillie – also Lilliane and Lillian and Lillianne. I also made allowances for incorrect spelling, so searched all the different variations I could find.

Remembering that I had finally found Bobby because of his picture (and name of course), one day I thought that I would do one of those fabulous “images” links that Google offer with just the name Anita, convinced that now I was sure to be able to recognise her somehow.

There were thousands and thousands of pictures and I probably looked at a fair few of those. Some person called Anita had posted the pictures of herself on a holiday somewhere in the world and one girl looked a bit like me. I emailed her but she didn’t get back to me – probably thought I was some sort of nut case. When I looked again for that photo she had removed them all.

I tried the births and deaths sites in Zambia and South Africa – impossible!

I tried to find if there was an internet register that listed marriages—impossible!

I scoured through the names of cemetery residents—impossible!

On Ingrid’s side of the world in South Africa; she was also trying to find her sister by writing to various magazines in the hope that she would read about herself of make contact.

I wrote to an Australian TV program that finds lost family members – no reply.

I wrote to Oprah – no reply.

There are various website that you can enter the names of lost people you are looking for. I tried them out – Anita’s name probably appears many times on the internet. Ingrid did the same.

In June 2008 Ingrid managed to acquire Anita’s ID number from an investigative firm and approached the Department of Home Affairs in South Africa.

This is an email Ingrid received from the Department in July 2008 which gave us so much hope:

Dear Ingrid ,

Search for your sister: Thank you for your e-mail.
  Upon our telephonic conversation, we have discussed that I could not provide you with an address over e-mail or telephone.

Although we have advised you to visit your local Department of Home Affairs district office for further assistance.
  Just as a reminder, you will be required to produce proof to the officials in order to validate your intentions.
  On behalf of the Customer Services Centre, we wish you all the luck in your search.
  Please keep us updated on the progress of this matter.

Ingrid actually travelled to see these people and they just would not give her any more information.

Try as we might with emails going backwards and forwards, they just were not prepared to give any more information except to say she was last heard of living in Janesville.

We emailed all important offices in Janesville, the Train Station, the Police Station, the Post Office and Ingrid tried a bank friend – the town folk of Janesville tried their hardest to help Ingrid find Anita – but in the end, neither of us was successful.

I printed out a list of every Anita that I could find listed online in the in the South African White Pages and started phoning them one by one. Unfortunately this effort was unsuccessful as well.

Ok, time to start searching for Anita Macrae – spelling again – McRae, McRay, Macray. All unsuccessful.

I emailed people in Scotland, Ireland and England with no luck.

I did find a daughter of a Macrae once, who emailed me that she was living in South Africa and seemed to remember a Lily and would try on my behalf, to find something on a George Macrae – but after that one email, I never heard back from her and my subsequent emails went unanswered.

I emailed most of the McRae’s in all the spelling variations that I could find – no answers.

On one day I would be searching for Anita Hunke – then Anita Macrae, then Mcray, etc etc.

I was running around in circles endlessly finding myself back to square one. Every day I started from the beginning, thinking – “where are you Anita?” “Are you still alive?”

I was on Messenger and looked for her in that. Not just once, but over and over

I was on Skype and looked for her on that. Again – every time I was on, I typed in her name.

I was on FaceBook and looked for her on that. Over and over, time and again.

On all the sites, I would look for both Lily and Anita and type in Lily Hunke, Lilly Hunke, Lillian Hunke – thought perhaps that had the wrong spelling – so tried all different spellings, like Huneke as well. Why Huneke? – Because for some reason I am in the possession of Anita’s birth certificate on which they spelled her name incorrectly.

On many occasions while on FaceBook – I typed Anita’s name in as I often did and a few came up. I messaged them all asking if they were my long lost cousin – only one person replied apologizing for not being our Anita. I did the same for all the Hunke’s And Huneke’s.

I wrote to many:

I have been looking for my cousin Anita. If your mother's name is Lily and father Kurt - please contact me

From an Anita Funke I received this:

sorry only to reply to you now, but I am sadly not the person you are looking for :( I hope you find her, holding thumbs for you!
Regards,
Anita



Forward to 10th October 2009

It was around 4pm and I had been connected to FaceBook a few hours previously when I decided to type in the usual search – Anita Hunke

There was one and I messaged her.

A few hours later she added me as a friend and messaged me – My father is kurt guido anthon hunke born 11/1/1925 i have two brothers named robert @ ricky – OH MY GOD – could this be???

I telephoned Bobby and he said he was suspicious as an Anita Hunke had contacted him and he thought he would speak to me first in case this was another crazy person. While I was speaking to him, I read out her message about Kurt and I went to Anita’s FaceBook page to look at her birth date – it was the one we had all been searching for. I could hardly contain myself and said “please call Ingrid – tell her now”

Bobby called Ingrid and she sent her phone number to the Anita on FaceBook and then called me on Skype, crying. While I was speaking to Ingrid, I could hear her telephone ringing in the background – it was Anita calling Ingrid – sisters who had been separated for 49 years.

After seeing photos of Anita, I believe that Kurt was wrong – he was her father and had died believing he only had two boys, Bobby and Ricky. Don’t feel sorry for this man – he was a cruel selfish man who treated people badly throughout his life.

Incidentally Anita wasn’t anywhere near the town told to Ingrid by the precious Dept of Home Affairs - Jansenville and had moved away a long time ago. Also, her name doesn’t appear on the telephone list that I had printed out and wasted my time phoning.

My search is over – no more typing names in search engines, no more wondering where my cousins were.

The family is complete.

This was my journey

Dare I say that I almost miss the searching? It has been a long journey that has taken me 11 years to complete and I needed to write it all down.

And By The Way – All the members of my family, every one of them has a detailed and complicated story to be told; from each the parents, Eva, Alf, Lily and Kurt to each of their children. Their stories are other chapters in recovering my memory - piece by piece.

THE HUNKE'S...


1. Robert – nickname Bobby
   Born - Congo 8 Nov 1951
   1959 - Taken from Lily to Belgium
   1961 - Taken to Brugge orphanage
   Lost – Found Sept 2004

2. Erich – nickname Ricky
   Born - Congo 14 Jul 1953
   1959 - Taken from Lily to Belgium
   1961 - Taken to Brugge orphanage
   Lost – Committed Suicide 1984

3. Anita – nickname Poupée
   Born – Congo 17 Aug 1954
   Stayed with Lily
   Lost – Found October 2009

4. Ingrid Eva
   Born – Kitwe 3 May 1957
   1960 - Taken from Lily to Zambia
   Lived with Alf and Eva until Eva’s death
   Never Lost – Adopted out 1964