Latin America’s Schindler: a missing character of 20th 100 years

Roberto Kozak, at the airport, support a break the rules commander connect an airplane into the towards the exile. Photograph: Museum of Memory and Peoples Rights, Chile

Around Standard Pinochet’s signal of terror from inside the Chile, one-man spared lots of people throughout the dictator’s intense magic cops. Just how performed Roberto Kozak take action – and you may avoid passing?

J ust ahead of 10am into the The latest Year’s Eve 1986, equipped people started to any office of a little organization to possess brand new resettlement off migrants, for the Santiago, Chile. They quickly began rounding up employees. “They put you from the meeting place, on to the ground, deal with down. They slashed desktop wiring and you may tied united states right up, wrist so you can hand,” appreciated Eliana Infante, among staff. “Once they tied united states right up, it requested, ‘Which of you is the communist guy away from good bitch Roberto Kozak?’”

Kozak is marched off an airline http://www.datingmentor.org/cs/popularni-seznamka from stairways. Having a machine gun so you can their lead, he had been obligated to rest near the top of an event dining table while he was interrogated from the paramilitaries.

The fresh new gunmen had been members of a rightwing passing group super-dedicated to the Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet. These were in search of weapons and money that they suspected was basically stashed in Kozak’s place of work: the brand new Santiago part of one’s Geneva-mainly based Intergovernmental Panel to have Eu Migration (ICEM). These people were together with in search of proof one Kozak was implicated when you look at the an assassination try into the Pinochet a couple months before, which in fact had kept four of your dictator’s bodyguards inactive.

From the days next ambush, Pinochet’s safety qualities had kidnapped several high-reputation leftwing activists in Santiago and you will slit its throats.

After an hour or so, Kozak was released, myself unharmed, and you may rushed upstairs in order to untie their staff. “He was environmentally friendly. It actually was a colour anywhere between reddish, white and green,” told you Infante. “However, casino poker-confronted, he went downstairs, silently entitled Geneva to inform them of your own raid immediately after which continued together with his works.”

If the paramilitaries bust to the ICEM work environment, Infante additionally the remaining teams dreadful one Kozak was going to end up being slain – and this immediately following killing your, the newest armed males would set fire to their place of work, making them, tied up on to the ground, to burn to help you death

Roberto Kozak’s is one of the higher untold tales of one’s 20th millennium. Diplomatic associates who understand complete information on exactly what the guy did during the Pinochet era described your as the “Latin America’s Schindler”. Particularly Oskar Schindler, brand new Italian language businessman whom aided to store step one,2 hundred Jews inside the Poland in next industry conflict, Kozak’s story is the fact out of a man which fearlessly used his position to save lifetime. He might easily has leftover their direct off when you are thousands was indeed pulled prisoner, tortured or “disappeared” by the Chile’s brutal military and you can miracle police, but the guy chose to not ever. Regarding years after the 1973 military coup, Kozak and diplomats off their nations assisted an estimated twenty five,000-thirty-five,one hundred thousand Chilean political inmates escape from captivity and acquire secure sanctuary overseas.

Not as much as interrogation, Kozak insisted the Santiago workplace was only employed in helping refugees, which there are none firearms nor large amounts of cash to your premise

More than ten years through to the raid into the their workplace, Kozak got spent some time working his method towards internal circles of one’s Pinochet regimen, courting senior military data, politicians, officials and you may members of the trick police. Deploying a mix of diplomatic charm, persistence and you can crates off imported whisky, the guy attempt painstakingly discussing the discharge of detainees, a great deal of who were regarding Chilean remaining. The guy also hid many in the own home. Kozak brokered their product sales inside the batches, sometimes results or a huge selection of prisoners at once, either just one or two.