Roberto Kozak, in the airport, facilitate a push back frontrunner hook an airplane on the into the exile. Photograph: Art gallery off Memory and you can Person Legal rights, Chile
Not as much as General Pinochet’s signal of scary inside Chile, one-man conserved huge numbers of people regarding the dictator’s brutal wonders police. How did Roberto Kozak exercise – and you can escape death?
J ust just before 10am on The new Year’s Eve 1986, armed boys come to the office regarding a tiny organisation to own the latest resettlement away from migrants, in Santiago, Chile. They quickly first started rounding upwards personnel. “It tossed all of us regarding the conference space, on to the ground, face down. It clipped desktop wires and you will tied up you right up, arm so you’re able to arm,” appreciated Eliana Infante, among the teams. “After they tied all of us right up, they asked, ‘Who ‘s the communist man out of good bitch Roberto Kozak?’”
Kozak is actually marched off a journey of stairways. Which have a server firearm so you can their lead, he had been compelled to lie towards the top of a conference table as he is actually interrogated by the paramilitaries.
The new gunmen had been members of an excellent rightwing death team ultra-loyal for the Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet. They certainly were selecting firearms and money which they thought was indeed stashed inside the Kozak’s work environment: the fresh new Santiago department of the Geneva-founded Intergovernmental Committee to have Eu Migration (ICEM). These people were including looking proof one Kozak is accused in the a murder attempt on Pinochet a few months before, which had remaining four of your own dictator’s bodyguards dead.
On months upcoming ambush, Pinochet’s cover functions got kidnapped numerous highest-reputation leftwing activists from inside the Santiago and you may slit their throats.
Immediately following an hour, Kozak was released, privately unscathed, and you can hurried upstairs so you’re able to untie his teams. “He had been eco-friendly. It had been a color ranging from red-colored, light and eco-friendly,” told you Infante. “But poker-confronted, he ran downstairs, calmly entitled Geneva to inform her or him of raid right after which went on together with his works.”
In the event the paramilitaries bust on the ICEM work environment https://www.datingmentor.org/pl/randki-wiccan, Infante and the other countries in the team feared that Kozak is planning to feel murdered – which shortly after eliminating your, the newest armed males create set flames to their office, leaving her or him, fastened on the ground, to burn in order to dying
Roberto Kozak’s is among the high untold tales of one’s 20th 100 years. Diplomatic acquaintances who understand full details of what the guy did inside the Pinochet day and age labeled him once the “Latin America’s Schindler”. Such as for instance Oskar Schindler, the brand new Italian language entrepreneur whom aided to keep step one,2 hundred Jews in the Poland in 2nd industry conflict, Kozak’s facts is that from men just who bravely put his updates to save existence. He could easily features leftover their head down while you are thousands had been pulled prisoner, tortured otherwise “disappeared” because of the Chile’s raw army and you will wonders cops, but the guy selected not to. About decades adopting the 1973 armed forces coup, Kozak and you will diplomats from other regions helped a projected twenty five,000-thirty five,000 Chilean political prisoners escape from captivity and find safer sanctuary overseas.
Under interrogation, Kozak insisted the Santiago office was only employed in permitting refugees, hence there were none weapons neither large amounts of money to your premise
More than a decade until the raid into his office, Kozak had spent some time working their way to your interior circles of your own Pinochet regimen, courting elderly military data, political figures, officials and you may members of the secret cops. Deploying a mix of diplomatic charm, determination and you will crates regarding imported whisky, he set about painstakingly settling the discharge regarding detainees, many exactly who was indeed about Chilean remaining. He actually hid a lot of them in his home. Kozak brokered their deals inside batches, both ratings otherwise countless inmates at once, often only one or two.
