Apparently, my sister always assumed that I knew I had been born illegitimately, in November 1945, in a small Roman Catholic village near the French border in south Germany. This explains why she has always regarded me with such suspicion and resentment. I, however, found out only recently when malicious gossip in my sister’s village got back to me. My birth was such a disgrace, or so the story goes, that the priest felt compelled to reprimand all unmarried mothers in his sermon at the time.

My teenage mother had been to a dance in the village hall earlier that year. As I later learnt, the event had been organised by the SS, and there my mother had met her lover, a soldier stationed near the village. Afterwards, nobody knew where my father’s unit had gone, and despite the best efforts of my mother and the mayor, he could not be traced.

The man who I have until recently assumed to be my father returned from north Germany shortly afterwards, where he had been imprisoned by the British. By then, I was living with my grandparents.

In February 1948 my parents got married in my dad’s parish, mum in a white dress, three months pregnant with my sister, though she managed to conceal it from the priest. I was dressed in white and attended the wedding with my grandparents.

Thinking about it now, the telltale signs were so obvious. At the time, I never thought to question it. When I reached school age I had to be enrolled at the local primary school in a Catholic convent in town. Only then was it decided that I should live with my parents, and my birth certificate was changed so that the nuns would not question the different surname. Another lie. My father must have told the authorities that he was my father, otherwise they would not have been able to issue a second birth certificate with a different surname.

Over the years, my sister has worked herself up about all this, along with her daughter, who later verbally attacked me in public. Eventually we approached Dad to request the truth. He was very evasive; all he said was that he had promised Mum never to mention the subject again. As it later turned out, the whole family knew, as well as everybody in my grandparents’ village and beyond.

For me it was a relief to know the truth, but it was difficult to deal with the fact that I had been lied to all these years. When I was 16 there had been a rumour in our part of town but when I asked my parents, they swore that it wasn’t true.

I had often wondered why I did not fit in with the family and why I was accused of being different. I never really had a close relationship with my parents, or felt that I had much in common with my father. I was excessively supervised – taken to work, collected for lunch and in the evening. He would not let me out of his sight and tried to control me as long as I lived at home. Now, of course, it all makes sense.

After the big secret was revealed I started the search for my biological father. There was not much to go on; my mother had taken the secret to her grave. Her older sister and cousin were still alive, but all they knew was my biological father’s name and appearance, his approximate age and home town.

They were reluctant to elaborate, and did not want to admit that there had been a camp up in the woods, let alone an SS camp. It was only through a chance meeting with a young lady at the town archive that this was confirmed. Reluctantly, when confronted with the facts, Aunty had to agree, though she was adamant that my father was not SS.

It is well documented that other units had been accommodated there and that their retreat had to be very sudden. But how can I believe anything after I have been lied to for so many years? Frankly, I do not care whether my father was an ordinary soldier or was in the SS. I would like to meet him, whoever he is.

The relevant authorities were very helpful, but all members of the German Army are filed under birth dates and I did not have a precise birthday. Months were spent trying to get information from small register offices from the town where my father is said to have been born, but nobody wanted to release any information. Data protection was cited as the reason. Unfortunately, since the fall of the Berlin Wall everything has been decentralised, which makes the search even more difficult.

Meanwhile, in 1995, I was found to have primary biliary cirrhosis, an incurable genetic disorder, and had a liver transplant in 2005. This disease runs in families, so the first question every doctor asks concerns my family health, which is a constant reminder to me that my family secret is still just that.

Do you live with a family secret?

How has it affected your life? Do you still struggle with it? E-mail us at familysecrets@thetimes.co.uk Or write to us at: Family Secrets, times2, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1TT Anonymity guaranteed

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