On 20 August 1976, during the time of the military dictatorship, the following report appeared in the Uruguayan newspaper 'El Día': In Montevideo yesterday evening a two months old baby was found abandoned by its degenerate mother. The baby was admitted to the city orphanage by order of the court. The mother has not yet been traced. Hackl links the finding of the baby with a young woman called Sara Méndez who fled from Uruguay in 1973 and continued fighting against the regime in Argentina. In June 1976 she gave birth to a child in Buenos Aires, and twenty days later she was abducted by a commando of the Secret Service. She had to leave her son Simón behind - one of thousands of missing persons. Sara's efforts at finding the baby Simón again were unsuccessful for many years, and it was only in the mid-1980s that she came upon the track of an abandoned boy who was probably her son. Her desire for certainty about the boy's identity brought her into conflict with all the other parties involved: the law of the land, the boy's foster parents, and the boy himself. Hackl tells the story in great detail and in clear, poetic language. He does not shrink from calling a spade a spade, he spares neither the victim nor the culprits, he takes sides, and he does not deny his own part in the affair. Yet this gripping and moving story is concerned with more than just this one specific case and reminds us of a whole generation of young men and women who were set on changing the world two decades ago. The author asks, softly, what became of them and their dreams, what was neglected and what still remains to be done, and what happens to those actively dedicated to the ideal of justice for everyone. He asks, too, where the stories end and life begins, and above all he reminds us of man's power to retain his dignity and his ability to pass on his experiences.