Roberto Kozak, at the airport, facilitate a rebel commander connect a plane toward towards exile. Photograph: Museum regarding Memories and you may Person Rights, Chile
Under General Pinochet’s laws away from horror inside the Chile, one-man saved lots of people regarding the dictator’s raw magic police. How did Roberto Kozak do so – and you may escape dying?
J ust in advance of 10am to the The fresh new Year’s Eve 1986, armed boys come to the office away from a tiny organisation to have the newest resettlement of migrants, inside Santiago, Chile. It immediately first started rounding upwards personnel. “It put you about fulfilling area, on the floor, deal with down. They slashed computer cables and you will tied united states up, hand in order to wrist,” remembered Eliana Infante, among employees. “Once they tied up united states up, it expected, ‘Who is the communist boy away from a good bitch Roberto Kozak?’”
Kozak try marched down a flight out of steps. That have a servers weapon in order to their direct, learn this here now he had been compelled to sit towards the top of a conference dining table while he is actually interrogated from the paramilitaries.
The newest gunmen were people in a great rightwing death team super-loyal into Chilean dictator Standard Augusto Pinochet. They were looking firearms and money that they guessed had been stashed when you look at the Kozak’s office: new Santiago branch of your own Geneva-founded Intergovernmental Committee to own Eu Migration (ICEM). These people were along with selecting research one Kozak was implicated when you look at the a murder test on the Pinochet a couple months before, which in fact had kept four of dictator’s bodyguards deceased.
From the days following ambush, Pinochet’s cover features had kidnapped numerous high-reputation leftwing activists for the Santiago and you can slit their throats.
After an hour or so, Kozak premiered, personally unscathed, and rushed upstairs so you’re able to untie his staff. “He was eco-friendly. It had been a colour anywhere between red, light and you may eco-friendly,” said Infante. “But casino poker-encountered, the guy went downstairs, quietly titled Geneva to inform him or her of the raid immediately after which went on along with his works.”
In the event the paramilitaries bust to your ICEM workplace, Infante together with rest of the group feared you to definitely Kozak is going to end up being murdered – and therefore immediately following destroying him, this new equipped people carry out place flame to their office, leaving her or him, tied up on to the ground, burning to help you death
Roberto Kozak’s is one of the high untold stories of one’s twentieth 100 years. Diplomatic colleagues which understand complete details of just what he did in the Pinochet time regarded him since the “Latin America’s Schindler”. Such Oskar Schindler, the fresh new Italian language business person which assisted to keep 1,200 Jews for the Poland during the second community battle, Kozak’s story is the fact away from a person which bravely utilized his status to keep lives. He may easily possess kept his lead off when you find yourself many was drawn prisoner, tortured otherwise “disappeared” because of the Chile’s intense military and you can wonders cops, but the guy chosen to not. About many years pursuing the 1973 army coup, Kozak and you can diplomats from other regions helped a projected twenty-five,000-35,one hundred thousand Chilean governmental inmates getting away from captivity and acquire secure refuge overseas.
Less than interrogation, Kozak insisted that the Santiago place of work was only employed in enabling refugees, hence there are neither guns neither considerable amounts of cash towards the site
More 10 years till the raid to the their place of work, Kozak got did his means on the internal circles of your own Pinochet regimen, courting older army data, politicians, officials and you can members of the secret police. Deploying a mixture of diplomatic appeal, persistence and you may crates out-of brought in whisky, he attempt painstakingly negotiating the discharge out-of detainees, nearly all just who have been from the Chilean left. He also hid a lot of them within his own house. Kozak brokered his deals within the batches, possibly score or numerous prisoners at a time, either just a few.
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