Latin America’s Schindler: a missing character of your own 20th 100 years
Roberto Kozak, in the airport, support a rebel leader catch an airplane on into the exile. Photograph: Museum out of Memory and you may People Rights, Chile
Not as much as Standard Pinochet’s signal regarding horror for the Chile, one man stored thousands of people on the dictator’s raw wonders cops. Exactly how performed Roberto doctor sex chat Kozak take action – and you can eliminate demise?
J ust before 10am toward New Year’s Eve 1986, equipped people reach work out of a small organization having this new resettlement out of migrants, from inside the Santiago, Chile. They immediately first started rounding up teams. “They tossed all of us throughout the appointment space, on to the floor, deal with off. It reduce computers wiring and you will tied up united states upwards, hand so you’re able to hand,” appreciated Eliana Infante, one of many personnel. “Once they fastened all of us upwards, it expected, ‘Which of you is the communist son from a bitch Roberto Kozak?’”
Kozak was marched down a journey out of stairs. Having a servers weapon so you can his head, he was compelled to rest towards the top of a meeting desk as he try interrogated from the paramilitaries.
The brand new gunmen had been members of a good rightwing dying group super-faithful into Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet. These people were looking weapons and money which they thought have been stashed inside Kozak’s place of work: the Santiago part of Geneva-established Intergovernmental Committee to have Western european Migration (ICEM). They certainly were as well as looking for proof that Kozak is implicated into the an assassination take to towards Pinochet a few months prior to, which had remaining four of dictator’s bodyguards dead.
Regarding the weeks after that ambush, Pinochet’s shelter qualities had kidnapped numerous higher-character leftwing activists in Santiago and you may slit its throats.
Once one hour, Kozak was released, in person unharmed, and you will rushed upstairs to untie his staff. “He was environmentally friendly. It was a color between yellow, light and you will green,” told you Infante. “However, poker-encountered, the guy ran downstairs, quietly titled Geneva to share with her or him of the raid and went on with his work.”
In the event the paramilitaries bust with the ICEM place of work, Infante as well as the remaining portion of the group dreadful that Kozak is about to end up being killed – which immediately following killing your, the newest armed guys do put flames on their work environment, making him or her, fastened on to the ground, to lose in order to passing
Roberto Kozak’s is amongst the great untold stories of your own 20th century. Diplomatic associates which know the complete information on just what the guy performed within the Pinochet point in time labeled him once the “Latin America’s Schindler”. For example Oskar Schindler, the German businessman exactly who aided to store step one,200 Jews inside Poland in 2nd globe conflict, Kozak’s story would be the fact from one who fearlessly utilized his standing to keep existence. He might with ease possess left their lead down while plenty have been removed prisoner, punished otherwise “disappeared” from the Chile’s brutal military and you may secret cops, however, the guy picked never to. Regarding the years adopting the 1973 army coup, Kozak and diplomats off their countries helped a projected 25,000-thirty-five,100000 Chilean governmental inmates getting away from captivity and find safe retreat abroad.
Below interrogation, Kozak insisted your Santiago office was just doing work in permitting refugees, hence there are none weapons nor large volumes of cash towards the premise
Over a decade till the raid for the their work environment, Kozak had did their means towards the inner groups of the Pinochet techniques, courting older military data, people in politics, authorities and you may members of the secret cops. Deploying a mix of diplomatic attraction, patience and you will crates off brought in whisky, he attempt painstakingly discussing the release of detainees, many whom had been on the Chilean leftover. He actually hid a lot of them within his own house. Kozak brokered their income within the batches, often results or countless inmates at a time, often only one or two.