The Three Sisters – A Story of Separation, Survival, and Reunion

The Three Sisters – A Story of Separation, Survival, and Reunion

Once, in a quiet Romanian village, three sisters were born — united by blood, but soon to be scattered by a storm far beyond their control.

During the reign of Nicolae Ceaușescu (1965–1989), Romania fell under one of Eastern Europe’s most oppressive communist dictatorships. Ceaușescu ruled with fear, secrecy, and extreme policies meant to shape the country into a powerful socialist state. But instead of prosperity, these policies led to deep poverty, fear, and human suffering.

One of the most devastating legacies was his population policy. In 1966, Ceaușescu banned abortion and contraception to force population growth. Families were pressured — even forced — to have many children, regardless of whether they could feed or care for them. Mothers with fewer than four children were even taxed.

This created a humanitarian disaster.

By the 1980s, thousands of children were abandoned or placed in state-run orphanages. These institutions were overcrowded, underfunded, and often horrific. Many children suffered neglect, malnutrition, and abuse. Foreign journalists exposed the shocking conditions after the regime fell in 1989.

Because of this, international adoptions surged in the 1990s and early 2000s. Many Western families, moved by compassion, adopted Romanian children — hoping to give them a better life.

And so it was that:

The eldest sister was sent to Italy,

The middle child was adopted to New Zealand,

And the youngest remained in Romania, raised in a country still recovering from its trauma.


For years, they lived separate lives, unaware of each other’s fates — victims not of choice, but of history.

But in 2016, through the help of David Lomas and the New Zealand series Lost and Found, the impossible became real. The sisters were reunited — across continents, across time, across silence.

What communism had torn apart, love and truth brought back together.

Their story is one of survival, resilience, and reunion — a living testimony of how even in the darkest times, hope has a way of finding its way home.