In 1952, Sister Waldtraut, a nun from the Ingenbohl Catholic order in Switzerland, rode on horseback through the Chechari Valley in the Indian state of Jharkhand to spread the Christian faith. According to her 1990 obituary, she had shown an interest in missionary work from a young age. Sister Waldtraut, who was born in 1915 as Elisabeth Grünenfelder, grew up in a large family in Wangs in the canton of St Gallen. At the age of 17, she entered the Ingebohl Institute, the motherhouse of the Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross and trained as a kindergarten teacher. Six years later, she took her vows and initially worked in her profession before setting off on a mission to India with another nun, Sister M. Hubert Erhard (it was not unusual for nuns to take a male name). The two women left Switzerland in December 1951. On Christmas Eve, the travellers arrived in Benares (now Vanarasi), a Hindu pilgrimage town located in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Unexpectedly, no-one came to greet them and they had to spend the night in the railway station.[FN1 Institut Ingenbohl Archive in Brunnen, "Nekrolog" (obituary), Sarganserländer, January1990, p. 3.]
From a north Indian village to a megacity
After arriving in Benares, Sister Waldtraut had another 360 kilometres to cover before she reached the village of Mahuadanr in the Chechari Valley, her first mission station. Soon after, the motherhouse sent her to the village of Fakirana in the Indian state of Bihar, where she took over the management of St Mary's Home, a children's home established by Ingenbohl sisters in 1899. A list from the Ingenbohl Institute dated 1981 shows that numerous Indian children from this home were placed in the cantons of Aargau, Bern, Fribourg, Geneva, Jura, Lucerne, Neuchâtel and Vaud.[FN2 Ibid., list "Fakirana Kinder in der Schweiz" (Fakirana children in Switzerland) (until July 1981).]
Sister Waldtraut soon moved on to other mission stations. She was sent to the city of Brahmapuri in the state of Maharashtra, where she would try – and fail – to setup a mission station. A year later, she moved to Patna, the capital of the state of Bihar.[FN3 Idem., "Nekrolog" (obituary), Sarganserländer, January 1990, p. 4.] Ingenbohl missionaries had first arrived in the state in1894,[FN4 https://www.scsc-ingenbohl.org/weltweite-einsatzorte/provinz-indien-zentral/, accessed 23.2.2024.] where they had set up a home for girls in Bettiah, and the first Indian nun called to the motherhouse in Ingebohl came from here.
Left: The first four Ingenbohl Sisters in India (1894). Right: The first Indian Ingenbohl Sister at the Swiss motherhouse (Theodosis Thakur, 1901). Source: GenArchive SCSC Ikonothek.
In Patna, Sister Waldtraut took on the responsibility of organising the conversion of a former colonial house into a hospital. After this, she travelled to the city of Pathalgaon in the state of Chhattisgarh, where she oversaw the construction of a college for home economics and teacher training.[FN5 Idem., "Nekrolog" (obituary), Sarganserländer, January 1990, p. 4.] The missionaries were an important partner for Swiss development cooperation in India. In 1974, the Ingenbohl Institute was the biggest Swiss donor in India, providing around CHF 5 million in funding. [FN6 Cf. https://dodis.ch/32949 and https://dodis.ch/52301, accessed 23.2.2024.]
The adoption placement activities of the Sisters of Ingebohl
In the late 1970s, suffering from malaria and a heart condition, Sister Waldtraut moved to New Delhi where she took over the management of an old people’s home.[FN7 Idem.,"Nekrolog" (obituary), Sarganserländer, January 1990, p. 5.] It was in this town that she met Sister Hermann-Josef (1929–2002). The Ingenbohl Sister had been working in India since 1963 and had also passed through various stations before settling in New Delhi, where she ran an adoption centre. The Holy Cross Social Service Centre, known as 'Holy Cross', was originally a children's daycare centre.[FN8 Ibid. Obituary of Ingenbohl Sister Hermann-Josef Jegler (1929–2002), Baden-Württemberg.] From this institution, she placed children for adoption abroad.[FN9 Ibid.] Sister Waldtraut was taken with this idea, and from 1981 began placing children herself.[FN10 Widmer Gisela,"Ein Tag im Leben von Waltraud Grünenfelder", Tages-Anzeiger magazine, December 1986.]
Sister Waldtraut at the Holy Cross Social Service Centre in New Delhi (Source: Der Bund, 17 January 1987, p. 64.)
Indian courts would transfer the 'guardianship', of Indian babies to her.[FN11 BAR, E4300C-01#1998/299#1349*, copy of the order of the Delhi District Court, 4 May 1982 (she would take custody of the child, in this case together with a married couple from the canton of Geneva); BAR,E4300C-01#1998/299#1349*, telex from Swiss embassy in New Delhi to Swiss Federal Aliens Office and Federal Department of Foreign Affairs regarding guardianship of a child intended for a couple in the canton of Schwyz,17.11.1982.] She would assume custody of the children in question and bring some of them to Switzerland in person. Alongside Sister Hermann-Josef, Sister Waldtraut in New Delhi became an additional point of contact for couples from Switzerland wanting to adopt an Indian child. Such contacts in India were very useful. The missionaries spoke German and knew their way around in India, thus avoiding the need for an adoption agency in Switzerland. Couples in Switzerland who were interested in adoption would learn of these addresses by word of mouth, as a social worker noted in 1981 about the approach of a couple from the canton of Zurich: "Through acquaintances who had also adopted a child from India, they found out about the possibility of adopting an Indian child through an agency in India."[FN12 A20: STAW AV, on "Etat" 8314, report by a social worker, 22.5.1981.]
Over 1,000 children placed for
adoption
The two nuns were important contacts not only for couples wanting to arrange intercountry adoptions but also for Swiss adoption agencies. When an employee of Adoption International wanted to set up a liaison office in New Delhi in mid-January1982 and asked the Swiss embassy for support,[FN13 BAR E2023A#1998#212#1161*, written record of Swiss embassy discussion, 13.1.1982.] she was advised to contact Sister Waldtraut.[FN14 BAR E2200.110#1994/350#19*, letter from Swiss consulate general in Bombay to humanitarian aid division of FDFA development cooperation and humanitarian aid department, 12.2.1982.] Terre des Hommes also knocked on her door, as did the adoption agent Jo Millar from the canton of Geneva. Jo Millar placed Indian children for adoption mainly in French-speaking Switzerland. She helped some couples to take in several Indian children.
Homestory of a family with 7 adopted children (Source: Tribune de Genève,17.8.1993.). The name of the family has been redacted out.
Tribune de Genève: Home story of a family who adopted seven Indian children in addition to their own four.
The name of the family has been redacted out.
She advertised her services extensively and the list of newspaper articles mentioning her is long.[FN15 BAR, E2200.64#1998/111#22*, cf. newspaper article by Aditya Sinha, "Foreign homes for the disabled", The Times of India, 24.3.1983; newspaper article by Stéphane Vincent, "Rencontre familles adoptives et enfants à Cointrin. L'amour était au rendez-vous", Le Courrier, 24.11.1987; newspaper article by Jyoti Malhotra, "Not children of a lesser god", Indian Express (Sunday edition),10.4.1988.] This publicity peaked in October 1989, when Jo Millar celebrated the tenth anniversary of her service and invited the media to witness the arrival of the 400th Indian child at Geneva-Cointrin airport.[FN16 StALU, cassette recordings of the RTS programme "Scooter", a radio report in which prospective adoptive parents were interviewed shortly before the arrival of a plane carrying Indian children and upon welcoming the children.]
Voices of couples waiting at the airport for their future adoptive child. Excerpt from the TV programme "Scooter", RTS 1.10.1989
Clip: "Say 'bye-bye aeroplane' (...) 'bye India!'" Source: StALU FDC 116_8.1, Kassettenaufnahme der Sendung Scooter (cassette recording of the programme Scooter), RTS, 1.10.1989.
Ronakshah1990, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
New Delhi, home of the Ingenbohl Sisters Waldtraut and Hermann-Josef, was the place where the paths of various different actors came together. In November 1982, the Swiss Federal Aliens Office learned from the Swiss embassy in New Delhi that Sister Waldtraut had placed 50 children in Switzerland that year alone. Sister Hermann-Josef's obituary reveals that over the decades she placed around 1,000 Indian children for adoption with couples in Europe, the United States and Australia,[FN17 Archive of the Ingenbohl Institute in Brunnen (Switzerland), obituary of Ingenbohl Sister Hermann-Josef Jegler (1929–2002), Baden-Württemberg.] and was thus active in arranging intercountry adoptions on a large scale.
The staff of the Swiss representations in New Delhi and Bombay knew the Ingenbohl sisters personally. They met at events organised by the Swiss expat association, the Swiss Society, and celebrated 1 August (Swiss National Day) and the Santa Claus Party together with representatives of well-known Swiss companies in India every year. In the Swiss Federal Archives, invitations, guest lists, schedules of festivities and menus provide an insight into the busy social lives of these Swiss expats in India.
Child abductions
Sister Waldtraut enjoyed close relations with the Swiss embassy in New Delhi. From time to time, they would send her on missions to discreetly obtain information.[FN18 BAR, E4300C-01#1998/299#1349*, memo from Swiss embassy in New Delhi,22.2.1985.] In her religious costume, she was a person of authority and did not arouse suspicions when travelling. An incident in 1982 was to test the limits of this surreptitious collaboration. The embassy and the Swiss Federal Aliens Office in Bern were confronted with the improper handover of custody of an Indian girl to a couple in Switzerland, in which Sister Waldtraut had played a leading role. Under oath, Sister Waldtraut had falsely declared before the district court in New Delhi that the girl’s biological parents were "unknown" and had abandoned their child. It soon turned out, however, that the mother in India wanted her little girl to be returned.[FN19 BAR,E4300C-01#1998/299#1349*, telex from Swiss embassy in New Delhi to Swiss Federal Aliens Office and Fed. Dept. of Foreign Affairs, 17.11.1982.]
The embassy handled the matter with the utmost discretion and insisted on corresponding with the federal authorities in Switzerland by encoded telex. This would have seemed all the more urgent as the embassy's lawyer of confidence was involved alongside the Ingenbohl sisters, which did not reflect well on Switzerland. An embassy official asked the Swiss Federal Aliens Office to order the Swiss couple to return the Indian child and suggested suspending all visa applications currently being processed.[FN20 BAR, E4300C-01#1998/299#1349*, telex from Swiss embassy in New Delhi to Swiss Federal Aliens Office and Fed. Dept. of Foreign Affairs, 17.11.1982.] The Swiss Federal Aliens Office then finally announced that the couple was prepared to give up the child.[FN21 BAR, E4300C-01#1998/299#1349*, telex (encoded) from Swiss Federal Aliens Office to Swiss embassy in New Delhi, 24.11.1982 and 25.11.1982.] The couple, however, contacted the lawyer to demand that the 20,000 Swiss francs already paid be placed in a blocked account and disbursed only once a replacement had been found for the returned child.[FN22 BAR, E4300C-01#1998/299#1349*, telex (encoded) from Swiss Federal Aliens Office to Swiss embassy in New Delhi, 26.11.1982.]
Information on costs, provided by the Adoption International association
The official cost for the placement of children for adoption by Swiss adoption agencies amounted to several thousand francs in each case. Some couples seeking to adopt ended up paying amounts of up to 20,000 or 30,000 Swiss francs.
In the end, the girl reclaimed by her Indian mother was brought back to India by an employee of the lawyer in early December 1982.[FN25BAR, E4300C-01#1998/299#1349*, telex marked “urgent” from Peter S. Erni, Swiss ambassador in New Delhi, to Federal Police Office, 9.12.1982.]
The federal authorities did not have to wait many months for a second highly problematic case. A foster family that had taken in a child with Sister Waldtraut’s assistance had asked that the child be returned to India, stating that the girl had not been able to adapt to life in the family.[FN26 BAR, E2200.64#1994/251#23*, telegram from Swiss Federal Aliens Office to Swiss embassy in New Delhi, 21.3.1983.] Sister Waldtraut and Jo Millar then pulled out all the stops to place the girl with another family in Switzerland.
Lack of realisation
The Swiss embassy in New Delhi had its hands full with these two cases. In a note attached to the file, the embassy's head of chancery pointed out that the moment of the handover was a "weak point" that could lead to abuses or the sale of children.[FN27 BAR, E2200.64/2002/12#36*memo from Swiss embassy in New Delhi about discussion of 20.9.1983, 28.9.1983.] The embassy therefore advised Sister Waldtraut that future visa applications must include a deed of surrender from the child's parents, as provided for by the Swiss legislation on foster care and adoption. Sister Waldtraut was unhappy about this: "She does not understand how anyone can 'call this good deed into question'."[FN28 Ibid.] "We have just visited 75 families in Switzerland and Germany, and all are happy", she told the magazine of the Zurich Tages-Anzeiger newspaper in 1986.[FN29 Gisela Widmer, "Ein Tag im Leben von Waltraud Grünenfelder", Tages-Anzeiger magazine, 1986.]
