By Ashley Collman PUBLISHED: 18:57 EST, 7 December 2013 | UPDATED: 19:01 EST, 7 December 2013 Reunited: Angela Palmer went her whole life believing that her mother abandoned her at an orphanage when she was a child, but learned the other side of the story when her mother requested to be her friend on Facebook last month Angela Palmer got the ultimate early Christmas gift this year when she reconnected with her mother on Facebook. The 44-year-old California woman was born in Germany where she was raised by her father, Klaus Hostnik, who told her that her mother abandoned her as a child.
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Anegla Palmer, 44, got a friend request from her mother in Croatia last month
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All her life, Palmer believed that her mother had abandoned her at an orphanage when she was a child
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But according to mother Helga Simecki, Palmer's father Klaus Hostnik kidnapped her
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Hostnik evaded police by moving with his daughter 12 times in 18 years across Germany
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Now Palmer is trying to organize a face to face meeting, fundraising money on line to pay for her mother's plane ticket to the U.S.
Simecki says she did get full custody, because @placeholder was physically abusive but that she never willingly gave up her daughter.