Original subtitles

No less than clothing.

PROMOTIONAL VIDEO - COLONIA DIGNIDAD

Make sure it's well ironed.

Artistic dressmakers like these ladies,

who are busy making suits and dresses for 300 people.

There is no time to be bored.

But please, think carefully.

Here, each one seeks their own destiny.

Those members of society with agricultural skills,

go to the fields.

Mechanics have their place.

Anyway, since childhood, they specialize in something

to be useful in the future.

I was assigned to the tailor shop.

The tailor shop was a long building.

It was about 50 meters long.

And down below, under a concrete layer,

there was a basement.

It was the potato cellar.

Anyway, I wasn't allowed in there.

Entrance was forbidden. I had to stay upstairs.

I slept on a cot. I had to assemble it every night.

I would put a straw mattress, the blanket, and that's where I slept.

And right below me…

COLONIST …there was screaming.

The concrete floor was this thick.

It was the same every night.

Horrible screams, really terrifying.

A NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES

Let's go.

The DINA was an intelligence agency of the Chilean army and military power.

It was formed by Navy men, policemen,

Air Force members and 7,000 civilian agents.

And among those 7,000 civilians, around 1,000 were from Patria y Libertad.

They joined the secret service.

Because all communists had to be killed, right?

The bond I created between the army and the colony…

SECRETARY GENERAL OF "PATRIA Y LIBERTAD"

…became a kind of belonging,

I mean, like a brotherhood, call it what you want.

The army considered the colony as another regiment.

Schäfer ordered us around, our group was assigned different tasks.

There was a basement at the end of the barn.

It was always full of grain.

He ordered us to empty it in one day.

He came to watch us… COLONIST

…to see how we were doing, and if we would empty it on time.

Okay. Let us praise the Lord.

Praised be the Lord

We were all having dinner.

It was dark outside.

And suddenly,

Mamo Contreras showed up… COLONIST

…with three or four military men we didn't know.

Contreras was the head of the DINA, the secret police.

I knew him as "Mamo."

They sat at the table and ate.

They had something to do in the colony.

Schäfer told me, out of the blue,

"Drive this bus to Talca."

COLONIA DIGNIDAD'S FINANCIAL DIRECTOR

"You go there. I'll go behind you and meet you there."

They pushed the door and came in.

And that was it. The doors were very fragile.

LEFT-WING MILITANT IN TALCA

And they took me.

The house was full

of men.

So ridiculous,

they all wore sunglasses at three in the morning.

I mean,

it was all so cartoonish.

But at the same time, I was afraid.

Then, we got in a bus.

They put us in a bus.

The women came in from the back. And I thought, "What's going on here?"

Everything seemed very strange, something wasn't right.

They put me by the window.

So, if I moved my head like this,

because I had my tricks,

I lifted the hood and looked over my shoulder.

I could see city lights.

It was a long drive.

We went towards the mountains.

I could feel the mountains.

The air, the countryside, the cows mooing,

the birds.

STOP

And we arrived there.

"Stop right there. Now we're going home."

"Yes, I'm leaving right now."

The women were still inside.

I left quickly, and they did whatever they did.

It was horrible. Total abuse.

They took us to some place and put us against the wall.

And they took us one by one.

Mostly, they all came back in silence.

We couldn't talk to each other.

And crying.

I thought, "Where are they coming from? Were they tortured?"

"What's going on? Were they interrogated?"

"What did they say, my God?"

Until it was my turn.

The gap must be large enough for us to come through.

Yes, sure.

There, in that corner. Like this.

Everything was wrapped up in devotion,

in contrast with what was really happening.

The way we lived… COLONIST

We wanted to be pure, to follow God.

Then I see something like this basement, where I have never been.

It's exactly the opposite of what they made us believe.

How many more of these places are there that we know nothing about?

COLONIST It's horrible.

Schäfer said once in a meeting,

"I have no blood on my hands."

I wondered why he would say something like that.

They tied my arms to my legs,

and they put something here.

Then they told me,

"We put a lie detector on you."

"And if you answer and behave, you will go home in no time."

And they started to interrogate me.

Since I'm stubborn,

they had to increase the electric shocks.

They went higher and higher.

Very high.

Yes.

Didn't you ask what was happening to those people down there?

- Never. I didn't. - In the basement? Never?

Why not?

What could I do?

What was I... I thought it had to be okay.

What could I do? I'm not...

I'm no arbiter of anything, I'm nothing.

But everything seemed very strange.

Now you will see another display.

We ask the audience to watch carefully

what will happen on the stage.

Upstairs, life went on as usual.

Colonia Dignidad was isolated from everything.

Everything that happened there, everything that was done in there…

COLONIA DIGNIDAD'S CHILD VISITOR

…remained in absolute silence,

just as the landscape.

Within Colonia Dignidad's vast territory,

there wasn't just one torture center.

The Kartoffelkeller was one of them.

There was a torture school in there.

Overnight, they blocked up some hatches.

COLONIST There were big concrete hatches.

They poured concrete over them.

I was alone there.

I was 12 years old.

And I was very scared.

I could hear the blows.

And then the horrible screams.

When they stopped, I knew they were dead.

There was silence until the next one came in.

They probably brought them one by one, one after the other.

I was a medical student.

I belonged to the Revolutionary Left Movement,

the MIR.

They put a helmet on me,

like an aviator's helmet from the 1930s.

They attached

electrical wires

everywhere.

They put some under the helmet, like this…

Sometimes they would lift it and put...

Directly on my eyes.

Everywhere. On my genitals…

LEADING MEMBER OF THE MIR …in the urethra.

In the anus, all that.

Between the toes.

Anyway,

they started asking me about people.

I didn't dare look outside.

During the day, sometimes I would look out,

when no one was around.

I would look out the window without being seen,

and I always saw Karl van den Berg there.

Paul Schäfer ordered me

to bring food and drink

to some man.

And I had to take care of his waste.

I felt sorry for the man.

COLONIA DIGNIDAD'S LEADERSHIP MEMBER

It was a relief to help him.

From the beginning, my purpose in life

was to do good, not to torture people.

Schäfer gave me the task

to do that for that man, and that's what I did.

That's all I know about the craziness that happened in there.

Yes.

We cleaned the Kartoffelkeller.

We were two or three women.

COLONIST

There were different rooms. We cleaned the floor.

We had to do it in silence.

I never knew why.

Why did we have to keep quiet? I didn't understand.

But since they wouldn't give us an answer,

we complied and cleaned in silence.

I didn't know anything

about what happened or if something was happening.

Nothing at all.

I thought I would die.

Because it was very hard, it was so...

I couldn't walk, I was...

I was in very bad shape.

In my desperation, I would writhe all over the place.

And twice or three times over a week,

the helmet came off.

And that's how I found myself facing him.

Paul Schäfer was personally in charge of that.

Face to face.

Then he put his hand on me.

I refused to think about anything.

I didn't think about anything.

I mean, this or that person,

the party's structure, nothing.

I didn't think.

Then

I sang all day long.

First, to keep my sanity.

Because that way I could remain...

I would sing opera, I would sing love ballads,

I sang cuecas, I sang rancheras,

I sang songs from when I was a girl and older.

I sang.

I sang and sang.

The choir always met at one o'clock.

And Schäfer was the conductor.

We rehearsed the song "The Lord is my Shepherd."

It had a refrain that said,

"You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies."

You prepare a table before me…

We stretched the notes to the limit.

And Schäfer sat in his armchair,

moved to tears, and he would start sobbing.

I realized that Paul Schäfer

was quite above the military men.

He was the man in charge.

They had close contact.

I learned later that they took many prisoners there.

I was a member of the DINA secret service.

In Colonia Dignidad, they did the same things as in Villa Grimaldi.

FORMER MEMBER OF DINA

Torture. But more sophisticated torture.

The army was not prepared to get information out of prisoners.

They didn't know much,

so they thought the Germans had more experience.

They played music.

I don't know, they identified people.

They played "Swan Lake" for a colleague that was a teacher.

And he knew.

When "Swan Lake" played, he knew they were going to get him.

To torture him, to interrogate him.

In my case, "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik."

I had Mozart.

And I was never able to listen to it again.

Most of my happiest moments

happened when I was alone.

It didn't matter what I was doing.

Mostly with the machines

or outside, in nature,

when I could turn the machine off,

take out my Bible,

which I always carried in a back pocket,

behind the driver's seat.

And…

I don't know how to explain it,

it may sound profane,

but I felt God was close.

And all of a sudden,

- there were holes here and there. - That's right! You didn't dig those.

And another one three meters deep.

And when I mentioned it,

during the men's assembly, Schäfer put a lid on it right away.

Before I asked any more questions.

"Yes, we dug some holes as a test."

"We had to do some tests."

And that's all he said.

The only country in the world…

AUGUSTO PINOCHET'S VOICE

…that can say, "We chased the communists away"

is this one.

All right, gentlemen.

Remember, we are at war!

And the war is not over!

I received an assignment,

to accompany a captain by the last name Gómez Segovia.

And when we went to look for a prisoner,

he told me, "We are going to see the Germans."

I asked for the prisoner's belongings,

his clothes and all that,

and he told me, "He won't need those anymore."

We went to get the prisoner, Loro Matías.

Álvaro Modesto Vallejos Villagrán.

Loro was the director.

He was a political leader of the MIR.

And then, he... I don't know...

Something didn't work, he didn't cooperate with the torture.

At the entrance, at the gate, were Mücke and Paul Schäfer.

STOP

Loro got out,

and we handed him over to the Germans.

The Germans took him away.

I don't know where to.

And we went to the main house.

They served us dinner.

Suddenly, Schäfer came in with a dog.

He made a gesture with his hands, like this. "Fertig."

I always remember that word. Fertig.

I didn't think anything,

but I assumed Loro was already dead.

Because he said, "Fertig".

Because Segovia spoke German.

And we kept eating.

He would pet the dog, we ate.

We finished dinner, and they talked...

I gathered that Pinochet was visiting the colony on August 20.

President May God bless you

The most beautiful thing in Chile

Is your wife, Mrs. Lucía

We walked with a flag,

men and women together,

where the Hubschrauberplatz used to be.

COLONIST The heliport. Which is now gone.

- It's coming! - Look at it.

When he arrived, we waited in line.

We wore our Sunday best,

and we formed lines on both sides to greet him.

General Pinochet, our president back then,

was a good friend of Schäfer's.

My family was right-wing.

Going back to what I felt then, when I was little,

he was someone

that basically had liberated us

from a communist regime.

DIGNIDAD SOCIETY

Listen, friend, grab your backpack…

We had rehearsed a very special program

for Pinochet's visit.

Go on, my friend, sing

And also,

boys and girls rehearsed together.

That was very nice for the girls and me.

We go, we walk

Under the sky, in pure clarity

And the highlight of all this,

for us children or youngsters,

was that, when we sang for him,

he would be moved.

And that's what happened.

He wiped his tears once in a while.

Pinochet got into a car that belonged to Schäfer

and they toured the estate.

Schäfer received a well-deserved salary

from Augusto Pinochet.

Contracts for public work.

For example, for the construction of the Pan-American Highway,

of buildings, bridges, and dams.

Permits for uranium, titanium,

and gold mines.

It was the beginning of the golden era for Schäfer and his people.

That was the first time we traveled by bus.

We traveled 100 or 200 kilometers

in nature, to the mountains.

Whenever the buses went to the outside world,

the first thing they did...

- They closed the curtains. - They sewed and hung curtains.

And they closed them.

We were not allowed to see the outside world.

Especially girls and women. Or a woman kissing a man.

Or for example, big billboards

with half-naked women in ads and things like that.

- In underwear. - In underwear, I don't know.

Right?

There was total control.

Because our eyes had to be clean.

When we reached our destination, we would get off the bus,

and there was no contamination there.

When I started working outside,

I was able to see the world.

- But always under supervision. - But...

With the first shovels that I emptied in the dump truck,

one of the guys that were up there…

began looking and searching,

and he started collecting small gold nuggets.

From the material I had picked up and dumped with the machine.

The gold nuggets had the size of a fingernail.

It was impressive.

Schäfer would come with a rake and take the bigger pieces.

He would put them in a box. A medicine box.

Whenever we found a good piece, we would happily go and put it in his box.

It was a mix of gold rush and wanting to have Schäfer's favor.

He had made it clear to us

that we were special,

that we were the chosen ones, an elite group.

Thank You, Lord

We had his full trust and God's favor.

Thank You, Lord

You saved me

From slavery Why my parents gave me away...

That question remains unanswered.

As a child, I knew my name, Robert, but I didn't know my last name.

COLONIST

And I always imagined I had brothers and sisters.

At some point, I realized we all looked alike.

COLONIST

We all had wavy and very light blond hair.

But that was clearly a taboo subject.

Our attachment figure

was the group aunt.

Mine was Aunt Ani.

Yes, Martin was with me.

I loved him very much. I loved all the children very much.

Even if they were difficult,

because I always felt sorry for them

because they couldn't be with her parents.

GROUP AUNT

I always tried to be a mother for them.

Martin was taken away very early.

He would call on the phone,

and they would tell us, "Go to the Freihaus."

And then,

we would run to the Freihaus, and he would be waiting for us.

He was the person we trusted most,

whom...

We had to obey him and trust him 100 percent.

He took over the role of washing us or bathing us.

He always did it from then on.

I never dared to ask any questions,

because it was a taboo subject, you couldn't get involved.

That was exclusively for Schäfer, and we were not allowed to get involved.

I was seven or eight years old.

Schäfer dried me off when I got out of the bathtub.

There was a chair with a pillow.

He sat down and put me on his lap, naked.

And for half an hour or an hour,

he talked and did things to me.

I didn't think anything of it,

I felt comfortable, I was fine.

He was basically preparing me

for when I grew up and had the right age

so he could start doing to me all the things he did.

The temple was a place for the privileged.

Because it was an almost holy place

where this demigod chose them and took them.

It's like when you enter a church and open the Bible.

That's probably why they called it "the temple."

Then, Paul Schäfer said

he was going to build the temple

so, when Pinochet visited,

he could have a room to sleep in and a bathroom available.

My first reaction

was thinking,

"What a big lie. I know why he wants that bathroom."

The boys competed for his favor.

The highest distinction

was being named "sprinter."

I was also a sprinter, years later.

He never had a woman sprinter.

Never.

Ever.

A sprinter spent all his time next to Schäfer.

He traveled with him in his Mercedes and could carry weapons.

The sprinter was the person

that later would spend the night with Paul Schäfer.

And the next day, it was someone else's turn.

When we went to the room with Schäfer…

first, we had to prepare everything.

And also,

his gun was always visible on the nightstand.

The PPK.

And...

And when we were alone,

every single night would start with a shower.

He would shower us.

And that was when the abuse started.

As a general rule, we didn't talk about that with each other.

That was confidential.

We had to confess our intimate matters to Schäfer every day.

He asked me, "Who else have you done it with?"

He pulled my hair and gave me a terrible scolding.

"Should I find him?"

Then, he set up a duel.

And there was the other one, the boy who had slandered me.

We had to fight.

And we fought, it was a matter of life or death.

I taught you about good and evil.

PAUL SCHÄFER'S VOICE

You have committed unseen and unknown sins.

And that unknown sin will take you to a place where you don't want to go!

To darkness and loneliness!

I was locked up there for several weeks.

Who was going to help my little girl?

I had to survive for her.

For her, to protect her.

I heard words, I mean, voices, in Spanish

and in German.

And there…

it could be "Wie es die Frau gehen?"

I've never been able to remember.

Because right then,

I understood what he was asking,

"How is the woman doing?"

The guy that brought me food

comes and tells me one day,

"Don't break it."

And hands me a little plate.

The plate had a golden rim.

It was so pretty. I turned it around.

It was made in "something... dorf."

I said, "Oh. There it is."

"I'm in the colony."

"I am in the German culture."

Saturday morning, they bathed me and washed my head.

I recovered there

and felt a little better, cleaner.

They said, "You can't tell anyone."

"If you talk about what you've seen and heard here,

we will persecute you, your mother, your wife, your children."

"Wherever they are, you will never

get rid of us

if you say a word about where you were."

I was like a dog.

Sniffing around for evidence I could tell them about.

My plan was to go back home

and tell my comrades

that this place, this prison existed and whatnot.

After weeks of brutal torture,

Adriana Bórquez was finally released.

She was constantly harassed at home by the secret police.

And the Catholic Church helped her to flee abroad.

I had to testify before the Human Rights Commission

in order to destroy...

I mean, to end that evil.

The evil that existed in the colony.

DINA units traveled the world

to kill adversaries of General Pinochet

living in exile.

WE SUPPORT THE CHILEAN PEOPLE'S FIGHT FOR REVOLUTION

ROME All over the world,

there were protests against Pinochet's dictatorship's

human rights violations.

WE WILL WIN

Long live the international solidarity!

When they killed Letelier in Washington,

I finally realized.

I saw clearly

that the DINA and the army had killed Letelier.

The United States found out

that the army and the DINA had assassinated Letelier.

It was the Chilean army.

It was Pinochet.

It was General Contreras.

And that created...

That uncovered all the atrocities committed by the military.

The United States forced Pinochet to arrest Contreras

and eliminate the DINA.

The large crowd accompanied him, greeting and applauding him.

The general undoubtedly looks thinner.

According to what he told us,

he has lost at least 20 pounds since he's been in custody

at the Military Hospital.

General, please, I have a short question for you.

- Careful. - General.

General! How are you feeling?

I feel great.

General, please.

Why didn't you want to talk to the press before?

Because, unfortunately, I haven't encountered them.

The Supreme Court decided not to extradite Contreras.

He was dismissed as head of the secret service.

He disappeared from public life for a long time.

The colony was the ideal place for him,

to plan a secret operation

to cover the tracks of his most heinous crimes.

This annex to the Waldhaus

was built for Manuel Contreras.

- He would walk to the Waldhaus. - The house in the woods.

The path was covered by trees and shrubs.

It was blocked from view.

It was a complete house, with a bathroom and everything.

It was so sealed off that no one could see anything.

Almost like a hideout for long-term use.

For... I didn't know it was Manuel Contreras.

COLONIST Manuel Contreras was...

What was it called? The head of the secret service.

- The head of the DINA. - I didn't know either.

He was a diabetic,

and during the weeks he was hiding in the estate,

I cooked his food with no sugar.

He didn't walk around the estate,

and he didn't come to the kitchen either.

Then, I had

an unpleasant surprise,

if I may call it that.

- It had a name. - "Retiro de televisores", "TV recovery."

- That's right. - That's what it was called.

Yes.

One day, Schäfer came to me

and told me, "You, come here."

"I have a job for you."

"But don't look too much."

"We have to go clean something up."

That was all I knew.

I arrived at the first spot I had to excavate.

I started working, and suddenly...

I can't describe what I felt right then.

There were bodies.

The condition they were in…

It looked like a big mass of lard. White.

Like white fat.

Tufts of hair.