“Bergdoktor” star Ronja Forcher talks about the loss of her friend

Since 2008, the Austrian actress Ronja Forcher has embodied the role of Lilli Gruber in the ZDF series “The Bergdoktor”. Now the 28-year-old has spoken about a formative event of her childhood for the first time: the early death of her best friend Sarah.

The two girls grew up like siblings in Austria’s rural idyll, said Forcher. But Sarah suffered from a rare genetic disease that affected children affected in a time -lapot pace: Progerie. “At the moment, about 100 children around the world have the disease,” says Forcher. Only eleven of them would live in Europe. Sarah’s parents had received the diagnosis when her daughter was one year old. From then on everyone knew: Sarah will not grow old: “You can’t do anything about it. None of the affected children gets older than 14, 15 years. One became 18 years,” continued the actress.

Sarah ultimately died of a heart attack that led to her early death at the age of 13. “When my parents told me Sarah was dead, these three words changed everything in my life. Nothing was like before. That day my childhood ended,” the actress recalls in an interview. Sarah died on July 21, 2008. Ronja Forcher was twelve years old at the time and made her debut in the ZDF series “Der Bergdoktor”.

The two girls shared a unique friendship. “We were inseparably interwoven that I was no longer a child without them. Her mom was mine and mine was her, Sarah and I were two parts of a big picture. Sisters in the heart. For me it was my greatest role model.

The actress has now written down her experiences in a book. “Forever by my side. A special friendship and the way to myself” will be released on March 3.. When asked whether she would even give the name Sarah to a possible daughter, the actress replies: “I don’t know if I want there to be a second Sarah in my life.”