Only as an adult, long after the war, does H. P. learn about her mother’s forced sterilization during the Nazi era.
After H. P. was born in 1938, her mother H. K. (b. 1908) developed postpartum depression. She was then declared incurably mentally ill and subjected to forced sterilization at a psychiatric clinic. Even after the war, H. K. constantly worried about being taken away to a psychiatric facility. Due to her bodily harm and her psychological state, she was disparaged by her extended family. H. P. herself was married in 1958 and had three children.