Visiting Colonia Dignigad in Chile
Colonia Dignidad – now called Villa Baviera – is a settlement of German colonists, who were led and abused by the child rapist and sex offender Paul Schäfer. Some of those colonists between 1962 and 1997 still live there, some of them I met. These are my impressions from visit in March, 2025.
Murat "Muri" Kemaldar
I arrived with a car at about 17:45.
I was greeted by a middle-aged lady, who had a German accent. I switched to German, and she was happy to notice I speak German as well.
At that very moment I was wondering what she really knows or remembers about Germany, or even if she really had been to Germany before. Maybe she was born here, or if she came from Germany in the 70s with the other colonists, she must have been a child, I thought. I was born and raised in Germany, so it was weird to think that the people I meet here – even though they might share the German language with me – might not have a common perception of even memories of Germany as I do. It never crossed me before.
While I was talking with her, another person, male, kinda my age arrived, and was trying to get involved. The lady said that the residents of Villa Baviera are about to finish their dinner, and that we should go and meet them. On the phone with them, she suggested that they might even sing something for us. I didn't know what to think. So the 3 of us went to the dining hall.
A song
We arrived at the dining hall. The looks they gave us were more than curious.
It didn't take too long, and the residents in the dining hall lined up, and actually started singing for us:
Needless to say. I was deeply touched by this moment. Afterwards, we talked with some of the residents, mostly about the expropriation issue. More on that later.
Harald and Astrid
Harald and Astrid I met on my way out of Colonia Dignidad. They have a food truck just outside of the settlement. I stopped by, to grab a bite.
Harald was sitting at one of the tables, on the phone. Astrid was at the food truck, and from here I ordered a Completo (type of hot dog with ketchup, mustard, avocado, and more).
Astrid came to the settlement in 1962 when she was 7 years old. She was on one of the first colonist ships.
She told me about her school time. How Paul Schäfer split families from their kids. How he split the boys from the girls. How he abused religion for personal gains. About a new hospital, where kids where abused. How the school books, when they had any notion of the other sex, how they were censored, down to the pronouns. If there was a boy dinosaur in a girl's schoolbook, it would be turned into a girl also.
Harald was 3 years old, when he came to Chile in 1963.
They told me how they had met. She told me they knew each other, from seeing, but that they would never talk. They met after Paul Schäfer had fled.
Expropriation
When I was there in March 2025, the topic a expropriation was in the air. I was told that some of the former residents (who had moved away) together with the government, that they wanted to expropriate the settlement and turn it into a memorial site.
In July 2025, the decree was signed:
