Word: colonias
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...impoverished peasants of Chile's rural Seventh Region, the arrival in 1961 of los alemanes (the Germans) seemed at first like a godsend. The 60 or so blond, blue-eyed settlers of Colonia Dignidad (Dignity Colony) quickly set to work constructing what they called an "educational and benefactory society" on the site of an old ranch near Parral, 250 miles south of Santiago. Before long the newcomers had built a model community that offered many of the area's 20,000 residents access to employment, trade, free hospital services, an elementary school and, eventually, even a European-style restaurant...
...recent years that utopian vision has gradually given way to a darker, more sinister image. According to accounts provided by former Colonia Dignidad residents, the colony, which now numbers about 350, has become a virtual prison camp under the control of its founder and leader, Paul Schafer, 66. A self-proclaimed psychologist, Schafer fled Germany in 1961 with his small flock after police launched an investigation into charges that he had sexually abused two boys...
Schafer has also been accused by former colony residents of engaging in the illegal importation and manufacture of light arms. Most chilling, perhaps, are accusations by victims and ex-agents of Chile's dreaded intelligence service, DINA (renamed CNI in 1977), that Colonia Dignidad has been involved in the torture of leftist opponents of the military regime of General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. "These are gruesome matters," says Hugo Baar, a colony co- founder and a former associate of Schafer's, who calls the colony a "group that has become poisoned with lies...
Other small miracles abounded. In the city's Colonia Roma district, a residential area adorned with scatterings of art nouveau and art deco architecture, Ramona Saldana Martinez, 30, described her survival after the collapse of a six-story apartment building. She and two of her children were removed from the wreckage after 22 hours. Said Martinez: "My mother died instantly. My twelve-year-old son also died. The wall and the ceilings came down on us, but I could breathe. I stripped some wallpaper to let the air come...
...Brazil is home to more than 3.6 million ethnic Germans; in many areas, the German language is still more prevalent than Portuguese, and towns bear names such as Blumenau, Frederico Westphalen and Novo Hamburgo. Near the Chilean city of Parral, 300 Germans have set up a closed community called Colonia Dignidad. Protected by a high fence, the colony observes its own laws and has been reported to shelter at least two former ranking Nazis...