Overview
- In a detailed Die Zeit interview, the actress recounts her father pinning her down and striking her in the face, cutting her eyebrow with his wedding ring.
- She says years of caregiving bred fear and hatred, and as a 12-year-old she even wished to kill her father.
- Sawatzki recalls feeling overwhelming relief when her father died in 1978, describing it as the return of her freedom.
- She says the trauma made her doubt she could be a mother, yet she later found stability in family life and now describes herself as a loving parent.
- She highlights processing the past through therapy, public conversations including ARD’s Riverboat, and novels such as Brunnenstraße (2022) and Biarritz (2025).