Una historia necesaria

After the arrest and disappearance of Alfredo García, Silvia Vera did not cease her tireless search. In the midst of this harsh reality and with a family to support, Pepe Carrasco, a journalist who opposes the Pinochet regime, comes to Silvia's life. But the memory of Alfredo, day by day lingers on her mind.

Antonio Llidó was one of six priests opposed to Augusto Pinochet's regime who were arrested, and the only one who remains missing. Antonio was arrested by the DINA in 1974 and subjected to brutal torture, which only strengthened his faith, giving support and encouragement to other prisoners.

Julio Vega, a union leader, had already experienced repression in the 1950s and didn't want his family to go through the same thing. His daughter Martita already suspected that the military forces were after her father. But Julio was capable of anything to avoid reprisals against his loved ones. On the morning of August 16, 1976, Julio Roberto Vega was arrested on the street by DINA agents.

Rodolfo González Pérez, a conscript in the Chilean Air Force, is promoted to join Augusto Pinochet's secret police. Little by little, Rodolfo begins to succumb emotionally and sociologically to the horrors he witnesses.

Many Chileans were persecuted and disappeared throughout the country following the 1973 coup d'état. The D'Apollonio family was part of a wave of repression against peasants and workers in southern Chile by civilians and uniformed troops. Sergio and Carlos were kidnapped, murdered, and thrown into a river, never to be seen again.

Following the arrest of Alfonso Chanfreau, the DINA detained his partner, Erika Hennings, in an attempt to break him and extract information from him. But their commitment and mutual love for their daughter Natalia kept them united and strong during the days they were locked up at 38 Londres Street. Erika survived and tells this story in her own words.

Germán Grunert recounts the last moments he spent with his stepbrother Álvaro Barrios. Álvaro was a member of the MIR and was persecuted, detained, and disappeared as a result. This intimate narrative exposes the cruel effects of the civil and military dictatorship, both on the direct victims and on the survivors.

"My friend Max Santelices officially died on February 18, 2007. But he had already died long before that. He died the day his beloved wife Reinalda del Carmen disappeared while pregnant, never to return." A story by Ana Gamboa, friend of Reinalda del Carmen Pereira and Max Santelices.

During the dictatorship, there were many anonymous heroes who risked their lives to fight against Augusto Pinochet's regime. Alan Bruce was one of them. Despite the fact that his cousin Marcelo Moren Brito was one of the most bloodthirsty torturers at Villa Grimaldi, he never wavered in his determination to defeat the regime imposed by the armed forces.

One of the practices most commonly used by the DINA in the early years of the Chilean civil-military dictatorship was the sadistic and sustained intimidation of the relatives of detainees, in order to force them to inform on other people in exchange for the supposed release of their loved ones. The story of the D'Orival family bears witness to this.