Roberto Kozak, within airport, helps a break the rules leader hook an airplane for the to the exile. Photograph: Art gallery away from Memories and you will Peoples Liberties, Chile
Around Standard Pinochet’s signal out-of horror in the Chile, one man protected thousands of people from the dictator’s brutal secret police. How did Roberto Kozak get it done – and you can stay away from demise?
J ust before 10am with the The brand new Year’s Eve 1986, equipped men visited work away from a little organisation to possess new resettlement out of migrants, in the Santiago, Chile. They instantaneously first started rounding upwards staff. “It tossed all of us regarding the appointment room, on the floor, deal with off. It slash computer system cables and you may tied up all of us up, arm so you can wrist,” remembered Eliana Infante, among the many professionals. “When they tied us upwards, it requested, ‘Who ’s the communist man off good bitch Roberto Kozak?’”
Kozak is actually marched down an airline out of stairways. With a servers gun so you can his head, he had been forced to lie towards the top of a meeting desk while he was interrogated because of the paramilitaries.
The brand new gunmen was members of good rightwing dying team ultra-dedicated towards the Chilean dictator Standard Augusto Pinochet. These people were interested in firearms and cash which they guessed was in fact stashed when you look at the Kozak’s workplace: this new Santiago branch of your Geneva-depending Intergovernmental Panel to possess European Migration (ICEM). They were plus shopping for evidence you to definitely Kozak try accused inside a murder try towards Pinochet a couple months prior to, which had left four of one’s dictator’s bodyguards deceased.
On weeks after that ambush, Pinochet’s defense attributes had kidnapped numerous large-profile leftwing activists inside the Santiago and you can slit the throats.
Shortly after an hour or so, Kozak was released, yourself unharmed, and rushed upstairs so you’re able to untie his team. “He was environmentally friendly. It was a colour between purple, white and environmentally friendly,” told you Infante. “But web based poker-encountered, he ran downstairs, quietly named Geneva to inform her or him of your own raid following proceeded together with his functions.”
In the event the paramilitaries bust toward ICEM work environment, Infante therefore the rest of the professionals dreadful one to Kozak are planning to become killed – which just after killing your, brand new equipped people do set flames on their office, making him or her, fastened on the ground, to lose to dying
Roberto Kozak’s is one of the higher untold stories of twentieth century. Diplomatic associates just who be aware of the complete information on datingmentor.org local hookup Raleigh NC what the guy performed inside the Pinochet time referred to him because the “Latin America’s Schindler”. Such as for instance Oskar Schindler, the fresh German business person whom helped to save step one,2 hundred Jews when you look at the Poland inside the next business conflict, Kozak’s story is that off a guy which bravely utilized their status to store existence. He may easily have remaining their head off if you are many was basically pulled prisoner, tortured or “disappeared” by Chile’s intense military and miracle police, however, the guy chosen not to ever. From the many years pursuing the 1973 military coup, Kozak and you may diplomats from other regions helped a projected 25,000-thirty-five,100000 Chilean political prisoners getting away from captivity and acquire secure retreat overseas.
Below interrogation, Kozak insisted that Santiago office was only doing work in permitting refugees, hence there had been neither guns neither large volumes of cash toward properties
Over ten years up until the raid on the their work environment, Kozak got spent some time working their method to your interior groups of your own Pinochet regimen, courting senior military numbers, people in politics, officials and you can members of the secret cops. Deploying a mixture of diplomatic charm, patience and you will crates regarding brought in whisky, the guy begin painstakingly negotiating the discharge away from detainees, nearly all whom were in the Chilean kept. The guy even hid a lot of them in the own home. Kozak brokered their revenue inside the batches, possibly scores or a huge selection of prisoners at the same time, often just one or two.
