'The picture we'd held in front of us for 17 years was suddenly replaced with these two grown-up children,' Baerbel said.

Jens and Jeannette had been given a sound Socialist upbringing and said they had never been treated unkindly by their adoptive parents. That left them torn when confronted with their birth parents after so many years.

Jens especially faced serious problems in reconnecting. Months would pass before the children could get over their suspicion that their parents had simply abandoned them.

Today, Jeannette lives with her parents in the western Berlin district of Charlottenburg, along with a young daughter of her own. Jens, now 40, has also rebuilt contact with his parents.

'The years of torment have long since passed, thank God,' Baerbel Gruebel said.

After the collapse of the East German state in 1989-90, archives were found in a former East Berlin ministerial building with details of dozens of families separated like the Gruebels.

In virtually every case, officials and courts agreed to give the children for adoption to families loyal to the regime.

Attempts to prosecute those held responsible has proven complicated, legal experts say.

Margot Honecker -- the wife of late former East German head of state Erich Honecker -- was investigated for her alleged role in forced adoption cases involving children of dissidents caught trying to flee to the West in the 1970s and 80s.

For 25 years she'd been a tough Communist education minister in East Germany. Many felt she was behind the draconian measures taken against families caught making escape attempts.

'Many in the former East Germany would rather see 'the witch Margot' behind bars than Erich Honecker,' wrote the German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine, at the time. However, the allegations against her could not be proved and, by 1994, were dropped.

She eventually joined family members in Chile from where, now 82, she says she has no intention of ever returning to Germany.