Original subtitles

There's so much truth in everything that happened.

And do you believe those things happened?

Yes.

Although I didn't witness it, but from what I hear,

also from the colonists themselves.

They were allegedly burned here, right?

I was told they burned them further up.

- Here, there was... - This is where they dug out the bodies.

- And they burned them further up. - Yes.

In some flatlands.

Do you know, more or less, how many people there were?

No, I have no idea.

Hundreds.

They killed hundreds of people here.

Even now, I can't believe it.

My brother was one of them.

A NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES

There were about four, between four and five

per…

ditch.

COLONIST

And there were between eight and ten holes.

About 40 people.

That's my estimate.

That lasted about four weeks.

The work.

And

I had nightmares at night.

They brought some huge

steel construction bars.

They welded them. They tried to burn them there.

They had tried a wooden structure, but it didn't work.

In the end,

they looked for barrels with napalm.

They took them there

and tried with that.

With jellied gasoline

for flamethrowers.

And I know…

that they gathered the remains

and mixed them.

With pieces of charcoal,

remnants of mud, and bone fragments.

Small and fragile fragments.

Then,

the truck would go towards the river,

to the first site we used to visit when we were kids…

where the river makes a curve behind a big rock.

The water was deep.

The truck would back up

and unload all that into the river.

Colonia Dignidad is the only place in Chile

where no evidence of the dead has been found.

So absolutely nothing remained.

And these documents were found in Villa Baviera.

In the fields.

They were hidden, buried.

In the case of Juan Maino, we see in the upper right corner…

HEAD OF THE INVESTIGATIONS POLICE OF CHILE

…that there is a letter "D,"

which means he is a missing detainee.

According to all the records,

we could infer he was also detained in Villa Grimaldi.

FALSE STATEMENT IN WRIT OF PROTECTION

DECISION IN FAVOR OF ALLEGED MISSING PERSON

But that... From there, he was transferred…

MINISTER IS ASKED TO SUBMIT REPORT

…to Villa Baviera.

Most likely because he was destined…

WRIT OF PROTECTION DENIED …to be killed.

ARRESTED 5-26-1976 He was a guy.

He was a charming, happy man, who cared about others.

He worked in educational projects.

And he made photo sets.

Juan asked me

to keep all his belongings

because he was being followed.

That's when he first told me he was working

with a clandestine cell.

And he then left with the car.

That was the last time I saw him.

I want a body to be found.

A bone, a trace.

If they were buried here,

why hasn't anything been found?

JUAN MAINO'S SISTER

I would say it's overwhelming.

My father is a missing detainee.

I obviously have to ask about him.

Everybody knows he was an enemy of the Germans.

Of course I have to go there.

I'll look for my father for as long as I live.

COLONIA DIGNIDAD'S NEIGHBOR

And I will look for him more and more.

Now, my grandchildren tell me,

"Grandpa, if you die, we will keep fighting."

And they will.

Tell me something.

All of you were educated under Schäfer's system.

Yes.

One hundred percent.

What's left in all of your minds,

in your hearts, and your bodies,

that you need to reeducate?

Good question.

COLONIST Reeducate...

Let me wrap my head around that.

What do you think Schäfer taught you wrong?

How much of that is still in you?

There's a lot. Let's see.

The main thing is he abused the Bible and all that

to manipulate our conscience.

So... And also…

there was only one person that we regarded as a god.

What he said was the law.

If he said this is black, it's black, not green.

We will continue looking until we find something.

Right.

This country is divided because of the missing detainees.

It's divided.

For Juan.

For Gabriel.

Governments don't want to understand. The country is divided.

It's a very large wound

that doesn't close and it won't close

until the missing detainees are found.

JUSTICE FOR MISSING DETAINEES IN COLONIA DIGNIDAD

Justice! We want justice!

Justice! We want justice!

Justice! We want justice!

NO FORGIVENESS

I never thought

that the Chilean military could become…

FORMER MILITARY CHIEF OF "PATRIA Y LIBERTAD"

…the executioners of the people, of their own people.

There came the conflict with Argentina in 1978.

It was a conflict over the islands.

Not three little islands.

It was 200 miles of Argentinian Sea and Atlantic Ocean

that reached Antarctica in the projection.

Pinochet, who was a strategist and a geopolitician,

he was not a brute,

used that, he created an international conflict,

to extinguish

the human rights fire that had started in Chile.

BEAGLE: NULL JUDGMENT

I assure you that all Chileans…

EXCLUSIVE - PINOCHET ON BEAGLE

…united as one man

will stand up to defend…

AUGUSTO PINOCHET'S VOICE

…our legitimate rights

without being intimidated.

We have never given in

to any kind of pressure or threat.

And we will not do it now.

We women pledge our unreserved support,

as we have demonstrated so many times,

but we also demand that our men have courage,

the guts to defend your family and your homeland!

And these Germans gave

their unconditional support to the Chilean Army.

The colony became a sort of black market

for the purchase of weaponry by the Chilean army.

German naïveté.

Come in.

It was an order from the Chilean government.

My dad was the trader

that organized the arms deals.

Kurt Schnellenkamp cooperated with Gerhard Mertins,

a famous arms dealer and a source for the German intelligence service, BND.

Mertins had a silver mine in Mexico as a front.

First of all, you know I don't like to talk about arms deals.

ENTREPRENEUR AND ARMS DEALER

That has led to some strange conclusions from the public.

We export German industrial goods.

I only know that my dad, for a long time,

talked about Mertins as a good friend.

For him, he was a very good friend.

- Sit down. I'll move the chair. - Yes.

- Let me... - Sit down.

- And you? Over there? - Yes.

Good.

Dad, why did you procure all those weapons?

Procure weapons? That's not true.

You bought them in Germany. Didn't you?

- No. - Or it wasn't you?

You and Mertins?

No, I was...

- Why do you laugh? - I was...

I was in Mexico.

COLONIA DIGNIDAD'S FINANCIAL DIRECTOR

In Mexico, Mertins had...

- Yes, he was an arms dealer. - Yes.

But he didn't sell them clandestinely.

- He worked with the government. - Right.

The colony is located in a strategic area

in the border with Argentina.

So the army occupied the whole colony.

They installed high power radars.

In 1978, many soldiers started to arrive

in the area where we lived.

They began to dig trenches.

There was talk about an imminent war with Argentina.

And the army moved

the laboratories of the famous sarin gas

to the safest place.

The safest place in Chile was the colony.

Pinochet, whom I knew well personally,

was willing to do anything.

To gas the Argentine troops

at the mountain passes.

At the very last moment, the Pope

intervened to avoid the tragedy.

Thank you.

He forced the dictators of Chile and Argentina

to sit at the negotiating table.

We saw Augusto Pinochet,

I wouldn't say as a savior…

COLONIA DIGNIDAD'S CHILD VISITOR

…but as someone who, in a way, brought back peace to Chile.

We were adults.

I was already in my 30s.

And I knew well what I was worth, everything that I had done.

I knew I could be trusted

in any kind of situation.

So,

I went to talk to Schäfer.

And I told him,

"I want to start a friendship

with Edeltraud".

"What does that mean, a friendship?"

"Yes, when the time comes, I want to marry her."

All he said, was, "She's not interested."

"Not interested."

I told him,

"That can't be. No."

It hit me here, like cement.

It couldn't be true.

"Yes, she's not interested. Look for something else."

I went to the Freihaus,

and I said, "I want to start a friendship with Willi."

I told Schäfer.

He took a deep breath…

COLONIST

…and yelled at me in a horrible way.

He said that I needed to have my life in order, that I was a whore.

I didn't even know what a whore was.

"You're a rotten whore."

And "How many men have you already been with?"

And I stood there, with my tail between my legs.

He walked past me and went through the hallway

towards the kitchen, where the restaurant is now.

The restaurant.

And I stayed there.

Soon after, he came back and told me, "You're still standing there."

I told him, "Yes. You haven't given me an answer yet."

I told him,

"My life is in order."

He fell silent

and told me, "All right. Go ahead."

After that, everything happened very quickly, within a week.

I wore brown lace-up shoes

and a blue skirt suit.

I didn't have anything else. Oh, well.

That's how it was.

- No makeup. - No.

Yes.

Yes, I was 33 years old.

- Yes. - I think you were 34.

And we were allowed to have a honeymoon trip.

That was the first time in my life a man hugged me.

I saw those hairy arms.

And it was the first time someone kissed me.

It was terrifying but beautiful.

- Terrifying! - Terrifying and beautiful.

Yes.

We drove to Valparaiso

that same day.

We arrived in the evening, and we spent the first night there.

We weren't thinking about sex yet.

He tickled me and...

At one point, we jumped around so much

that we broke off a leg of the bed.

Yes, that's the truth.

We jumped around so much, we played like children.

And we broke the bed.

The next day,

we drove North along the coast.

And we saw the desert for the first time.

- And it was in bloom. - In bloom.

It meant so much to me, I was moved by its beauty.

It was simply...

It's not something that happens every year or every day. The desert was in bloom.

It was like

we had bloomed.

And the desert too.

Yes.

Not going back to Paul Schäfer...

I would've considered that a betrayal, it would've been wrong.

Because

they had given us the freedom,

they had given us a car and some money.

"Those who left us never truly belonged to us."

That little girl.

Lift up your head.

She's our daughter.

Look at her.

They're performing on stage.

- Yes. - Yes.

In my little apple Look, that's Matthias.

There is a really nice view

He was already wearing glasses.

It has five rooms Just like a little house

I wanted to have at least some pictures of the children and us, some memories.

Every Saturday,

I could bathe my children.

I tried to make sure they knew me well.

I tried to be their mother. The best I could.

But I wasn't allowed to tell them I was their mother.

Our children didn't know who their real parents were.

They called us "Uncle" and "Aunt."

We were allowed to see them whenever we wanted.

But only as uncle and aunt.

Oh, the distant valleys Oh, the heights

Oh, the beautiful and green forest

We grew up here like in a glass bubble.

The world where we lived was normal to us.

Outside, the hard work

As a group…

And it was really drilled into us

that the outside world was hell.

They would show us horrible movies.

COLONIST

Like The Exorcist. "That will happen if you disobey."

"That will happen if you run away from the Villa."

They would pick the most horrible things to scare us.

Long live Chile.

Hurrah!

The peace of the flag year is hereby proclaimed.

Effective immediately.

Paul Schäfer had a charismatic side

that he used to mobilize the community.

Once in a while, with that charm of his, he would say,

"Come, let me hug you."

Of course, that was the most beautiful thing we could imagine.

Get up again.

That was the best.

Something's going on.

We are all standing now, right?

Did you see how big the estate is?

Yes.

- Did you see Hamster, the piggy potato? - Yes.

But we were always afraid of doing something wrong.

Now march, you swine.

I was the flag-bearer.

I was robust and had a strong back then.

Stop!

And…

Flags forward!

I always had a big imagination.

I used to imagine the world,

the way it should be.

Woodpecker.

What does it mean?

It's the symbol for our group.

What does it symbolize?

I don't know.

Amen.

Get lost. You and our group.

Over there.

Stop.

A hard laugh.

No, that's not how it's done.

Again. Louder.

Dismissed.

Come on!

Come on, move.

It gets nicer here.

Go on.

- Keep going straight, dude. - Can you keep going?

We went on a trip once a year.

To the Argentinian border or to the coast or something like that.

Those were times to recharge.

COLONIST

We were happy,

but the real happiness lasted a moment, and in the end,

we went back to the daily grind.

Three, four.

He can hide the camera, he can film whatever he wants,

but leave us alone.

Always with that light on our faces.

Right?

That's worse than human rights violation,

worse than torture.

Paul Schäfer always said I was like a volcano.

You never knew what could happen.

If the light is on, is it recording?

Yes.

They started watching me because I was more violent.

I was more aggressive, I resisted.

Because when you say the truth, sometimes you can be hurtful.

And I hurt not just him, but everybody.

Whenever I said the truth.

What else?

I remember that assembly as if it were yesterday.

I said, "Why do we always have to be doing something?"

"Why do we always have to be busy?"

"Why don't we have time for us?"

"When can I do something like sleep in?"

"When will I have Saturday or Sunday off?"

Insolent, that's how he was.

He went crazy that day.

And it wasn't just a moment. He wouldn't stop.

"Picking rocks and roots, watering, harvesting…"

"And we don't get paid!"

"And we have to pray to God for our daily bread?"

"You people are crazy!"

I remember

that he was so insolent

- that the women, everybody... - No one had ever dared.

No one.

We didn't know what we know now.

Doing something like that in front of everybody, young and old,

I couldn't fathom that.

Paul Schäfer interrupted me, "Okay."

"Who wants to answer that?"

"Answering" meant doing something.

There was always a volunteer.

And it was Willi.

I had never wrongfully hit anyone.

But in that moment, I don't know, I got carried away.

Slaps to the face and, bam!

I fell to the floor, and he kept kicking me.

I grabbed onto the chair and the furniture,

and he kept hitting me.

So, what else?

Are we done with this topic?

And while that damned guy continued,

Paul Schäfer was sitting up there in his chair, on his podium,

watching.

He's just some poor devil, really.

It was simply to psychologically humiliate you

in front of the others.

And supposedly, when Willi Malessa hit me,

he broke a finger. Good!

COLONIA DIGNIDAD PROMOTIONAL VIDEO

Hello, how are you?

Let's see those hands!

What a manly handshake.

Notice that.

WHERE ARE THEY?

When the families of the missing detainees

and the human rights groups

came to our gate, it was crazy.

They had signs.

And they yelled on the megaphone,

"Murderers!"

"Go back to Germany!"

ANOTHER POLICE RAID WITH ILLEGAL ARRESTS?

"Those people are aggressive."

"They could throw rocks at us."

That's what they told us.

Everybody writes that we are strange people,

that we are puppets and whatnot.

But no one writes

about our lives,

about what we do,

about the sacrifices we make.

None of the swine that hound us.

They want to destroy us with all their might.

Yes.

But as long as Augusto is there,

it will be harder for them.

NO IMPUNITY

WHERE ARE THEY?

One night,

I woke up and got out of my room.

In the warehouse, there was a truck with a radio.

Those trucks were not locked. They didn't...

You could get in those trucks whenever you wanted.

I couldn't drive, but I could still get in.

That's how I learned about what was happening in Chile.

I mean, about the attacks, dead police officers and things like that.

Outside, there was also a struggle…

against a system.

We want justice!

Justice! We want justice!

There were many protests, there were strikes.

And in 1988,

he was forced to approve a referendum.

Which, by the way, he thought he was going to win.

He thought he was going to stay in power for a long time.

NO TO "CLOWNOCHET"

YES TO PINOCHET

YES

And then, I knew,

"Yes, that's right. That's going to change history."

REFERENDUM

People waited in long lines for their turn to vote,

although most of them tried to do it early in the morning.

General Augusto Pinochet

arrived at the polling station at the National Institute

at 10:43.

He entered this room.

He was smiling.

The 1988 Referendum on Channel 13.

The "Yes" vote in this third count

received 44,34% of the votes,

and the "No" vote, 53,31%.

Over to you, María Isabel.

A few moments ago, three members of the government council

arrived at the House of Government.

General Fernando Matthei said it was very simple,

that they had to acknowledge that the majority vote was "No."

MARCH 11, 1990

President Aylwin had an informal conversation with journalists

at the end of a press conference he gave this morning at the House

to discuss the Colonia Dignidad issue.

Colonia Dignidad's charity legal status must be revoked.

Finally, he did not rule out more legal action

if they find proof of tax, customs,

or labor law violations.

But the government doesn't have… PRESIDENT

…reasons or powers

to hinder lawful activities

such as operating a restaurant,

an industrial plant,

or an agricultural land,

as long as they abide by Chilean law.

What we cannot accept

is that those activities are carried out outside the Chilean laws.

According to the same official statement,

the profits obtained by the charity

are all lucrative,

and not only were they not used to fulfill their charitable purposes,

but they also were not invested

in the only two social activities carried out by the charity,

which are the hospital and the elementary school.

In the government's opinion, Dignidad is a secretive and autocratic entity

that, during its 29 years of existence,

has tried to become a state within a state.

Aylwin ordered the hospital and the school to be closed,

because, according to him, they didn't have legal status in Chile.

Pinochet couldn't help us anymore.

Everything was controlled, targeted…

PAUL SCHÄFER'S VOICE

…and planned by those political gypsies.

Those brats.

Murderers!

The closure of the hospital gave Schäfer

the chance for a strong counterattack.

He mobilized thousands of Chileans to defend the hospital and the colony.

He has an ulcer, my God, Lord,

have some mercy!

Someday, Lord, listen to us!

I carry You with me because I have faith in You.

Part of my family participated.

My mother and my brother belonged to one of these committees.

AMBULANCE

- And this... - Come on!

They called on the young to offer resistance,

to stand up to the Police,

to yell that we opposed the situation.

Things like that.

Salo!

What happened here that day, Salo?

That day, our authorities, who were supposed to...

Hold on. "The authorities."

Yes.

What happened here that day?

That day, the authorities…

COLONIA DIGNIDAD'S CHILD VISITOR

…that were supposed to protect us, brutally attacked us

with sticks, clubs, and these bombs, these grenades.

They attacked the poor, the innocent that couldn't defend themselves.

More than 23,000 patients.

Those lives don't count for them.

Only when there's an election, that's it.

That was a horrible, sad day here.

It was full of policemen,

the hospital was full of smoke. They closed it permanently.

CLOSED BY THE HEALTH SERVICE

We now must close the door,

and we must pray.

PAUL SCHÄFER'S VOICE There's no choice.

There's no choice.

We must pray.

Yes.

There is a closure order.

Obviously, I must object.

HOSPITAL'S HEAD PHYSICIAN

We filed an appeal for protection

because we consider the closure

to be completely unfair and illegal.

CLOSED BY THE HEALTH SERVICE

In the end, the colony won the lawsuit against President Aylwin.

And the courts ordered the hospital to reopen.

- Hooray! - With joy, with excitement!

- Hooray! - Because democracy won.

Long live Villa Baviera!

Hooray!

Long live our hospital!

Hooray!

Regardless of political inclination, Schäfer won.

Long live our hospital! God has answered our prayers!

He remains. "They still respect me,

and I still have a state within a state in a democracy."

All of a sudden, he called the young people.

COLONIST We were 20 or 30 years old.

And he said, "Let's do something."

"Let's create a youth movement."

We, the young from Villa Baviera,

had to invite young people from nearby towns.

And in the end, thousands of children came.

Soon, they felt right at home.

Uncle!

Most of those children

preferred to be inside the estate,

where there was no domestic violence.

They were vulnerable kids.

Schäfer acted with much more stealth,

like a wolf stalking its prey,

watching, observing.

One thing Schäfer never imagined,

because he underestimated us for being Chilean,

was that some of us

would be brave enough

to expose him and put an end to his reign.

Put an end to his power.