Erinnerungen von Ilse an Colonia Dignidad

This book is only available in German.

"These are the memoirs that Ilse, my adoptive mother, wrote after the arrest of Paul Schäfer, the founder of Colonia Dignidad in southern Chile. She wrote them in German and I translated them into Spanish. I tried to preserve the form of her simple words, as a childlike and innocent woman who was only to receive four years of primary education during the decades she lived as a prisoner of the sect in that concentration camp.
Ilse died in January 2010 and fought for justice until the last months of her life, so that one day the gates of Colonia Dignidad (Villa Baviera) would be closed.”

This is how this novel begins, the result of thorough research into a life and its dramatic setting. It is set in Colonia Dignidad, founded in Chile in the 1960s by Paul Schäfer, a former member of the Hitler Youth. As head of the colony, Schäfer applied Nazi practices, giving them a religious character. During the long years of his activity, he amassed a great deal of power and money and was a close collaborator of Augusto Pinochet, with the support of the German government.

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