Granddaughter: 'The Saddest Photo I've Ever Taken'

A couple who have spent almost their entire lives with one another, are being forced to spend their golden years apart because they cannot get into the same care home.

Wolf Gottschalk, 83, and his wife Anita, 81, met and fell in love while their families lived in the same apartment complex in Dusseldorf, Germany when they were teenagers.

The couple got married in 1954, as he worked in construction and a was a Merchant Marine and she worked in retail.

They went on to have three children - a son and two girls.

But after 62 years, for the past eight months, the couple have been forced to live separately because there are no spaces at care homes close by that can accommodate two people.

Both have failing health and are understandably desperate to spend as much time together as they can.

Their granddaughter Ashley Bartyik aired her sadness and frustration at the current situation on Facebook:

"After 62 years together, they're inseparable. They do everything together," she wrote.

Wolf is on a waitlist to move into the nursing home where his wife is cared for, called The Residence at Morgan Heights, but the Fraser Health Authority is unable to say when it will happen.

"They cry every time they see each other, and it is heartbreaking," she writes in the post, calling it "the saddest photo I have ever taken".

Ashley says her family hasn't received a single phone call from Fraser Health in the eight months her grandparents have been separated, and she says time is running out for the couple.

"We're just asking for anything that can be done so that my grandfather can be accommodated as soon as possible."

Read the full story at nzherald.co.nz