Missing girl exhibition 'brings visitors to tears'

An exhibition about the disappearance of a two-year-old girl and her family's fight to get answers has brought people to tears, its creator has said.

Katrice Lee went missing from a British military supermarket in Germany on 28 November 1981, the day of her second birthday.

Forty-three years later, the site where Katrice vanished is now an art gallery and has been hosting a photographic exhibition called Missing Katrice.

Her father Richard Lee, from Hartlepool, visited the exhibition earlier this month and said he kept dreaming of being reunited with his daughter.

Artist Stu McKenzie said the project - which includes plans for a photobook next year - had garnered interest from people who had never heard of Katrice's story.

A German artist created a song after being inspired by the exhibition and local schoolchildren made stones with messages for Katrice.

"It's been incredible to see and hear the support from the local German community here," Mr McKenzie said.

"It has been very heartwarming. We've had a lot of people come in and really feel the emotion of the story. We've had people crying."

Mr Lee, who served in the Army for more than 30 years, said the family still lived "in hope".

"When I see people step forward and they are physically moved to tears, but they are not just moved to tears by what they see in front of them, there is also a printed story around there, and it shows you the heartache and the endurance that my family has got," he said.

There have been no sightings of Katrice since the day she vanished, but the family believe she was abducted as a surrogate child and was brought up unaware of her true identity.

"She could be married, speaking another language and I could be a grandfather three times over," Mr Lee said. "Who knows? But what we will do is we will continue our fight for justice and get answers to where Katrice is.

"I have that one dream, and it is a recurring dream, that a woman comes forward, grabs hold of me, gives me a cuddle and whispers in my ear 'I am Katrice'."

Mr Lee previously said the family had been failed and were now "the only ones still searching" for Katrice.

Back in April, he handed back his army medals in protest over the way the case had been handled.

The Royal Military Police has since admitted failures with its investigation and apologised to the family.

The exhibition draws to a close on Thursday - Katrice's birthday and the day of her disappearance.

Mr McKenzie's father was in the army and in 1981 the family lived near Paderborn, where she went missing.

He said he was nine at the time, but remembered a "shock wave" go through the community.

"I remember my parents being very cautious about letting me out of their sight," he said.

"They definitely held my hand tighter when we went shopping after Katrice's disappearance."

A photobook is the next part of the project, with all proceeds going to a charity chosen by the Lee family.

There are also hopes the exhibition will be shown in the UK next year.

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