Hey everyone!
This is probably not the right subreddit, but I’m not quite sure where to go with this and I know reddit has worked wonders for some people. I’m looking for a woman who is most certainly still in Japan. Any help is so greatly appreciated!!
My dad died a couple of weeks ago. He’s been part of the german olympic youth for a huge part of his life. During that time, he was traveling to Japan with those young people for a german-japanese sports exchange. He’s been there for a couple of weeks every year for a decade, almost two, approximately from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.
Whenever he told me about the time in japan, there was this woman he was very close with. Her name is **Tomoko Iwama** and she worked as a translator, so I’m assuming she spoke japanese and german, maybe japanese and english. She was about the same age as my dad, so she should be in her late 60s or 70s now.
My dad always said, that she would’ve been the one if my mum wasn’t already in the picture. Either way – they seemed to have been close. Even after his time in the german olympic youth, they wrote letters to each other until my mum stopped him from contacting her.
This time of my dad’s life has always been very fascinating to me. He was deeply in love with japan and I grew up with lots of japanese traditions and things around our house. My dad and I were very close and now that I’ve lost him, I want to talk to every single person who was close to him. I want to hear about their memories with him and what he was like when I wasn’t born yet. Adding to that, if Tomoko still remembers him, I want to let her know that he always thought about her and that he’s not with us anymore.
Maybe anyone has any idea where to find her or what I could do next. There are several photos of my dad during his time in japan, but I’m not sure which of the women he’s pictured with is Tomoko, so I don’t know what she looks like.
Thank you all for reading!
by intracranial-kate