The forgotten 50th: Chile’s military coup and the Jews’ conflicted legacy

A new book shows what can happen to a small community of Jews, frightened by the past and fearful of the future.

There have been commemorations this year to mark several anniversaries: the assassination of President Kennedy (1963), the Yom Kippur War (1973), the Oslo Accords (1993). And less obvious ones that many in Jewish communities would prefer to forget such as the electrocution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg in Sing-Sing prison in 1953.

Into this latter category, can also be placed the military coup of General Augusto Pinochet and the death of President Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, when thousands were imprisoned, tortured and executed.

“The dirty war” in neighbouring Argentina in the 1970s took the lives of many Jews, murdered by a military junta in torture centres such as the Escuela Superior de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA) or drugged and thrown naked, out of airplanes, into the icy waters of the South Atlantic. However, less has been documented about the killing of Jews in neighbouring Chile under the military dictatorship.

A recent book by the American writer, Maxine Lowy, entitled Latent Memory: Human Rights and Jewish Identity in Pinochet's Chile has reclaimed the names of Jews who were “disappeared”, leaving no trace. It also records the acquiescence of communal leaders in pampering the generals while distancing themselves from those Jews who – alienated from communal norms – were persecuted by the regime.

Diana Aron and Juan Carlos Perelman were killed at Villa Grimaldi, a detention and torture centre. Carlos Berger was sentenced to 60 days imprisonment shortly after Pinochet's coup, then suddenly removed and shot on the road between Calama and Antofagasta.