The Inferno: A Story of Terror and Survival in Chile
by Luz Arce translated by Stacy Alba Skar
University of Wisconsin Press, 2004 Cloth: 978-0-299-19550-2 | eISBN: 978-0-299-19553-3 | Paper: 978-0-299-19554-0 Library of Congress Classification F3100.A66713 2004 Dewey Decimal Classification 983.065
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
As a member of Salvador Allende’s Personal Guards (GAP), Luz Arce worked with leaders of the Socialist Party during the Popular Unity Government from 1971 to1973. In the months following the coup, Arce served as a militant with others from the Left who opposed the military junta led by Augusto Pinochet, which controlled the country from 1973 to1990. Along with thousands of others in Chile, Arce was detained and tortured by Chile’s military intelligence service, the DINA, in their attempt to eliminate alternative voices and ideologies in the country. Arce’s testimonial offers the harrowing story of the abuse she suffered and witnessed as a survivor of detention camps, such as the infamous Villa Grimaldi.
But when faced with threats made to her family, including her young son, and with the possibility that she could be murdered as thousands of others had been, Arce began to collaborate with the Chilean military in their repression of national resistance groups and outlawed political parties. Her testimonial thus also offers a unique perspective from within the repressive structures as she tells of her work as a DINA agent whose identifications even lead to the capture of some of her former friends and compañeros.
During Chile’s return to democracy in the early 1990s, Arce experienced two fundamental changes in her life that led to the writing of her story. The first was a deep spiritual renewal through her contacts with the Catholic Church whose Vicariate of Solidarity had fought for human rights in the country during the dictatorship. The second was her decision to participate within the legal system to identify and bring to justice those members of the military who were responsible for the crimes committed from 1973 to1990. Luz Arce’s book invites readers to rethink the definition of testimonial narrative in Latin America through the unique perspective of a survivor-witness-confessor.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Luz Arce is a freelance writer living in Santiago, Chile.
REVIEWS
"Powerful reading. . . . A devastating book . . . [which] itself became part of an important controversy within Chile at the time of its appearance, about whether former leftists and secret police collaborators should be welcomed or rejected in society, and by whom."—Steve Stern, author of Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest
"The Inferno is a searing and haunting memoir of one woman’s journey through the hell of Pinochet’s torture chambers and secret police."—Peter Winn, Tufts University
“Arce’s testimony . . . draws from her direct proximity to and experiences of the machinery of violent death.”—Patrick Timmons, Latin American Research Review
TABLE OF CONTENTS
<table of contents, p. vii>
Contents
Prologue 000
Preliminary Thoughts 000
<LINE SPACE>
Part 1
1. Early Experiences 000 / In the GAP 000 / Socialist Militant 000 / GEA (Special Support Groups) 000
2. September 11, 1973 000
3. Clandestine Life 000 / The Personal Option 000 / Contact on Italia Avenue 000 / Party Work 000 / Ricardo Ruz Zañartu 000
4. At the Yucatan Detention Center 000
5. Tejas Verdes 000
6. Military Hospital (Hosmil) 000 / Other Prisoners at the Hosmil 000 / Conversation with the Assistant Director 000 / The Chaplain and the Eucharist 000
7. Nightmare in the Bathroom 000 / Rodolfo, Air Force Soldier 000 / End of the First detention 000
8. Freedom under Surveillance 000
9. Second Detention 000 / My Grandfather 000 / Face-to-Face with Private Rodolfo 000 / In the Tower at the Villa Grimaldi 000
10. Back to the Yucatan Detention Center 000 / Ricardo Lawrence Mires 000 / Collaboration 000 / Further and Further 000
11. Nightmares 000 / Marcelo Moren Brito 000 / At the Yucatan Detention Center Again 000 / A Compañero from the Party 000 / Mario Aguilera Salazar 000
12. Another Detention Center 000 / You Are Luz, I Will Be Somba 000 / Osvaldo Romo 000 / Cuatro Alamos 000 / The Unborn One 000
<LINE SPACE>
Part 2
13. Ollagüe Detention Center 000
14. Traitor and Whore 000 / Palmira Almuna Guzman, "Pepa" 000 / Lieutenant "Pablo" 000
15. My Lung Infection and My Last Meeting with My Brother 000 / Thoughts at Ollagüe 000 / Hunger for Bread 000 / Seeing My Family 000 / Female Personnel at Ollagüe 000
16. Lumi Videla Moya 000 / Sergio Perez Molina 000
17. The Day Miguel Died 000 / Alejandra's Suicide Attempt 000 / Captain Ferrer, alias Max Lenou 000
18. The Terranova Detention Center-Villa Nova Grimaldi 000 / 000 / Christmas 1974 000 / New Year's Eve at Terranova 000 / Investigation 000
19. My Son and Family Court 000 / Creating the Vampiro Group 000 / Rolf Wenderoth Pozo 000
20. A Compañero: "Joel" 000 / Bill Beausire Alonso 000 / Hugo Martinez, alias "Tano" 000 / The Eight from Valparaíso 000 / Lautaro Videla's Arrest 000 / Marcelo Moren Brito's Nephew 000 / The Press Conference 000 / The Little House Next to the Tower 000
21. Major Wenderoth's Trip 000 / General Bonilla's Death 000 / Alfredo Roja's Arrest 000 / Delia 000 / Ariel Mancilla 000 / Pedro Espinoza's Trip
22. The Cigarette Case 000 / Leonardo Schneider, alias "El Barba"
23. DINA Employee 000 / "Marcos'" Escape 000 / The Arrests of Ricardo Lagos, Exequiel Ponce, and Carlos Lorca Tobar 000 / At the San Borja Towers 000 / The 119 000 / An Incident with Fuentes Morrison 000 / Battle on Malloco Street
24. Christmas at Terranova 000 / Patricio 000 / Hasbún and Contreras 000 / Testimony before the United Nations
25. Analyst at the Department of Intelligence 000 / Edgardo Enriquez Espinoza 000 / OAS Metting in Chile 000 / Carmelo Soria 000 / The DINA behind Criminal Acts 000 / My Son's Visit with His Father
26. National Intelligence School 000
27. After the National Intelligence School 000 / "Chaty," Army Second Lieutenant 000 / Uruguayan Identity 000 / Change from the DINA to the CNI
28. Colonel Contreras 000
29. Contreras' Promotion to General 000 / Contreras Is Replaced 000 / Michael Townley 000 / Farewell Reception at the General's House 000 / Incident with Colonel Pantoja 000 / Rolf Wenderoth's Resignation 000 / 000
30. The CNI Investigates the DINA 000 / Another meeting with Pantoja 000 / Colonel Suau 000 / The Trial and the Incident with Colonel Concha
<LINE SPACE>
Part 3
31. In the CNI's Computer Unit 000 / Peace and Instability 000 / Request, to Resign 000 / Fragments of an Identity
32. Operation Celeste 000 / An Incident at the "München" Restarant 000 / Dolly's Place 000 / Visitors from Chile 000 / Trip to Santiago 000 / Back to Montevideo 000 / Return to Chile 000 / Ricardo Ruz's Death
33. Meeting Juan Manuel 000 / In Hiding Again 000 / Pain and Happiness in My Family 000 / Conversion and Father Geralso 000 / Father José Luis
34. Declaration before the National "Truth and Reconciliation" Commission 000 / Carlos Fresno 000 / Meeting with Erika and Viviana
35. In Europe 000 / Above All a Christian 000 / On Hatred and Reencounters 000 / Mrs. Gloria Olivares 000 / The Chilean Bureau of Investigations
36. In the Courts 000 / Encounter with Rolf Wenderoth Pozo 000 / Encounters with Geraldo Urrich and Manuel Carevic 000 / Basclay Zapata, alias "El Troglo" 000 / Fernando Lauriana
37. Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko 000 / Face-to-Face with Marcelo Moren Brito 000 / Encounter with Ricardo Lawrence Mires 000 / Other Court Proceddings
38. Maria Alicia, Alias "Carola," Alejandra, and Luz 000 / Mrs. Dobra Lusic nadal 000 / "I have Not Worked Alone" 000 / From Slavery to Freedom 000 / How Can One hate Someone Who Could Someday Be My Brother? 000
39. The Iron Fist 000
<LINE SPACE>
Notes 000
Index 000
Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: Chile Politics and government 1973-1988, Chile, Central Nacional de Informaciones, Political persecution Chile, Human rights Chile, Arce, Luz
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
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Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
The Inferno: A Story of Terror and Survival in Chile
by Luz Arce translated by Stacy Alba Skar
University of Wisconsin Press, 2004 Cloth: 978-0-299-19550-2 eISBN: 978-0-299-19553-3 Paper: 978-0-299-19554-0
As a member of Salvador Allende’s Personal Guards (GAP), Luz Arce worked with leaders of the Socialist Party during the Popular Unity Government from 1971 to1973. In the months following the coup, Arce served as a militant with others from the Left who opposed the military junta led by Augusto Pinochet, which controlled the country from 1973 to1990. Along with thousands of others in Chile, Arce was detained and tortured by Chile’s military intelligence service, the DINA, in their attempt to eliminate alternative voices and ideologies in the country. Arce’s testimonial offers the harrowing story of the abuse she suffered and witnessed as a survivor of detention camps, such as the infamous Villa Grimaldi.
But when faced with threats made to her family, including her young son, and with the possibility that she could be murdered as thousands of others had been, Arce began to collaborate with the Chilean military in their repression of national resistance groups and outlawed political parties. Her testimonial thus also offers a unique perspective from within the repressive structures as she tells of her work as a DINA agent whose identifications even lead to the capture of some of her former friends and compañeros.
During Chile’s return to democracy in the early 1990s, Arce experienced two fundamental changes in her life that led to the writing of her story. The first was a deep spiritual renewal through her contacts with the Catholic Church whose Vicariate of Solidarity had fought for human rights in the country during the dictatorship. The second was her decision to participate within the legal system to identify and bring to justice those members of the military who were responsible for the crimes committed from 1973 to1990. Luz Arce’s book invites readers to rethink the definition of testimonial narrative in Latin America through the unique perspective of a survivor-witness-confessor.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Luz Arce is a freelance writer living in Santiago, Chile.
REVIEWS
"Powerful reading. . . . A devastating book . . . [which] itself became part of an important controversy within Chile at the time of its appearance, about whether former leftists and secret police collaborators should be welcomed or rejected in society, and by whom."—Steve Stern, author of Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest
"The Inferno is a searing and haunting memoir of one woman’s journey through the hell of Pinochet’s torture chambers and secret police."—Peter Winn, Tufts University
“Arce’s testimony . . . draws from her direct proximity to and experiences of the machinery of violent death.”—Patrick Timmons, Latin American Research Review
TABLE OF CONTENTS
<table of contents, p. vii>
Contents
Prologue 000
Preliminary Thoughts 000
<LINE SPACE>
Part 1
1. Early Experiences 000 / In the GAP 000 / Socialist Militant 000 / GEA (Special Support Groups) 000
2. September 11, 1973 000
3. Clandestine Life 000 / The Personal Option 000 / Contact on Italia Avenue 000 / Party Work 000 / Ricardo Ruz Zañartu 000
4. At the Yucatan Detention Center 000
5. Tejas Verdes 000
6. Military Hospital (Hosmil) 000 / Other Prisoners at the Hosmil 000 / Conversation with the Assistant Director 000 / The Chaplain and the Eucharist 000
7. Nightmare in the Bathroom 000 / Rodolfo, Air Force Soldier 000 / End of the First detention 000
8. Freedom under Surveillance 000
9. Second Detention 000 / My Grandfather 000 / Face-to-Face with Private Rodolfo 000 / In the Tower at the Villa Grimaldi 000
10. Back to the Yucatan Detention Center 000 / Ricardo Lawrence Mires 000 / Collaboration 000 / Further and Further 000
11. Nightmares 000 / Marcelo Moren Brito 000 / At the Yucatan Detention Center Again 000 / A Compañero from the Party 000 / Mario Aguilera Salazar 000
12. Another Detention Center 000 / You Are Luz, I Will Be Somba 000 / Osvaldo Romo 000 / Cuatro Alamos 000 / The Unborn One 000
<LINE SPACE>
Part 2
13. Ollagüe Detention Center 000
14. Traitor and Whore 000 / Palmira Almuna Guzman, "Pepa" 000 / Lieutenant "Pablo" 000
15. My Lung Infection and My Last Meeting with My Brother 000 / Thoughts at Ollagüe 000 / Hunger for Bread 000 / Seeing My Family 000 / Female Personnel at Ollagüe 000
16. Lumi Videla Moya 000 / Sergio Perez Molina 000
17. The Day Miguel Died 000 / Alejandra's Suicide Attempt 000 / Captain Ferrer, alias Max Lenou 000
18. The Terranova Detention Center-Villa Nova Grimaldi 000 / 000 / Christmas 1974 000 / New Year's Eve at Terranova 000 / Investigation 000
19. My Son and Family Court 000 / Creating the Vampiro Group 000 / Rolf Wenderoth Pozo 000
20. A Compañero: "Joel" 000 / Bill Beausire Alonso 000 / Hugo Martinez, alias "Tano" 000 / The Eight from Valparaíso 000 / Lautaro Videla's Arrest 000 / Marcelo Moren Brito's Nephew 000 / The Press Conference 000 / The Little House Next to the Tower 000
21. Major Wenderoth's Trip 000 / General Bonilla's Death 000 / Alfredo Roja's Arrest 000 / Delia 000 / Ariel Mancilla 000 / Pedro Espinoza's Trip
22. The Cigarette Case 000 / Leonardo Schneider, alias "El Barba"
23. DINA Employee 000 / "Marcos'" Escape 000 / The Arrests of Ricardo Lagos, Exequiel Ponce, and Carlos Lorca Tobar 000 / At the San Borja Towers 000 / The 119 000 / An Incident with Fuentes Morrison 000 / Battle on Malloco Street
24. Christmas at Terranova 000 / Patricio 000 / Hasbún and Contreras 000 / Testimony before the United Nations
25. Analyst at the Department of Intelligence 000 / Edgardo Enriquez Espinoza 000 / OAS Metting in Chile 000 / Carmelo Soria 000 / The DINA behind Criminal Acts 000 / My Son's Visit with His Father
26. National Intelligence School 000
27. After the National Intelligence School 000 / "Chaty," Army Second Lieutenant 000 / Uruguayan Identity 000 / Change from the DINA to the CNI
28. Colonel Contreras 000
29. Contreras' Promotion to General 000 / Contreras Is Replaced 000 / Michael Townley 000 / Farewell Reception at the General's House 000 / Incident with Colonel Pantoja 000 / Rolf Wenderoth's Resignation 000 / 000
30. The CNI Investigates the DINA 000 / Another meeting with Pantoja 000 / Colonel Suau 000 / The Trial and the Incident with Colonel Concha
<LINE SPACE>
Part 3
31. In the CNI's Computer Unit 000 / Peace and Instability 000 / Request, to Resign 000 / Fragments of an Identity
32. Operation Celeste 000 / An Incident at the "München" Restarant 000 / Dolly's Place 000 / Visitors from Chile 000 / Trip to Santiago 000 / Back to Montevideo 000 / Return to Chile 000 / Ricardo Ruz's Death
33. Meeting Juan Manuel 000 / In Hiding Again 000 / Pain and Happiness in My Family 000 / Conversion and Father Geralso 000 / Father José Luis
34. Declaration before the National "Truth and Reconciliation" Commission 000 / Carlos Fresno 000 / Meeting with Erika and Viviana
35. In Europe 000 / Above All a Christian 000 / On Hatred and Reencounters 000 / Mrs. Gloria Olivares 000 / The Chilean Bureau of Investigations
36. In the Courts 000 / Encounter with Rolf Wenderoth Pozo 000 / Encounters with Geraldo Urrich and Manuel Carevic 000 / Basclay Zapata, alias "El Troglo" 000 / Fernando Lauriana
37. Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko 000 / Face-to-Face with Marcelo Moren Brito 000 / Encounter with Ricardo Lawrence Mires 000 / Other Court Proceddings
38. Maria Alicia, Alias "Carola," Alejandra, and Luz 000 / Mrs. Dobra Lusic nadal 000 / "I have Not Worked Alone" 000 / From Slavery to Freedom 000 / How Can One hate Someone Who Could Someday Be My Brother? 000
39. The Iron Fist 000
<LINE SPACE>
Notes 000
Index 000
Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: Chile Politics and government 1973-1988, Chile, Central Nacional de Informaciones, Political persecution Chile, Human rights Chile, Arce, Luz
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE