Child Kidnapping Research Articles

The Jundeff Affair – Comparative Remarks on International Child Kidnapping and Judicial Co-operation

Josef Jundeff was born in Poland. In 1952 he left that country and settled in West Berlin. On a visit to Israel in 1963 he met Sara, an Israeli woman residing in Israel. Josef and Sara married in Tel Aviv in 1965 and immediately after the wedding ceremony they left Israel and established their matrimonial home in West Berlin. There two boys were born to the Jundeffs in 1967. Two years later legal skirmishes started between husband and wife in Berlin. A short period of reconciliation followed. In January 1973 the wife finally decided to separate from her husband and, accordingly, she instituted divorce proceedings in the District Court (Landgericht) of West Berlin. Shortly thereafter, without obtaining her husband's consent or a judicial authorization, Sara took the children and brought them to Israel.