The Pisagua internment camp () was a concentration camp in Pisagua, Chile.
History An isolated location in northern Chile, Pisagua was used as a detention site for male homosexuals under the military dictatorship of General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo in 1927-1931.
From 1943 to 1945, Pisagua became the site of wartime internment for citizens of enemy nations when Chile entered World War II on the Allied side. The complex was turned into a concentration camp for Chilean socialists, communists and anarchists under President Gabriel González Videla in 1947-1948. Chilean Army Captain Augusto Pinochet was appointed to run the Pisagua camp in January 1948.
Pinochet's dictatorship to present
When General Pinochet himself seized power in September 1973, the site again became a political detention center.
It's been alleged that one of the torturers of this camp was Walter Rauff, a mid-ranking SS commander in Nazi Germany and the man responsible for creating the mobile gassing vans. He escaped to Ecuador after the war, and later found refuge in Chile with Germans willing to hide him. Under Pinochet's military dictatorship, Rauff may have served as an advisor to the Chilean secret police, DINA. Its believed he also had ties with the Nazi loyalist Colonia Dignidad which had footholds throughout South America.
In the 1990s, the Pisagua court case would draw further scrutiny to the prison camp when a claim of illegal burial was presented by the Chilean Vicariate of Solidarity on 31 May 1990. A mass grave was discovered in June 1990 and was found to contain 20 bodies inside. These would be later linked to prisoners and missing persons (desaparecidos) executed at the camp.
Identified persons from mass grave (June 6, 1990) Order of Discovery Name 1Manuel Eduardo Sanhueza Mellado 2Nicolas Chanez Chanez 3Tomas Orlando Cabello Cabello 4Luis Manriquez Wilde 5Juan Orlando Rojas Osega 6Hugo Tomas Martinez Guillen 7Alberto Amador Yañez Carvajal 8Luis Alberto Toro Castillo 9Nelson Jose Marquez Agusto 10German Elidio Palominos Lamas 11Juan Apolinario Mamani Garcia 12Jose Rufino Cordova Croxatto 13Juan Valencia Hinojosa 14Julio Cesar Cabezas Gacitua 15Mario Morris Barrios 16Humberto Lizardo Flores 17Luis Alberto Lizardi Lizardi 18Marcelo Omar Guzman Fuentes 19Juan Efrain Calderon Villalon 20 *Not confirmed by source
See also The Pisagua Court Case
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