Boris Weisfeiler went missing while on a backpacking trip to Chile in 1985.  For more than 15 years, Chilean and U.S. officials maintained he had drowned in a river.  But previously classified State Dept. documents released in 2000 revealed that U.S. embassy staff had long suspected that Weisfeiler was picked up by the Chilean military, who thought he was a spy, and turned over to Colonia Dignidad -- a sinister religious sect run by former Nazis and used as a political prison by the Pinochet regime.  But neither the Chilean government, or the U.S., actively pursued an investigation into these reports.

 

 

“I first heard about the case on Public Radio International in 2001, and I simply couldn’t believe that you still had Nazis down there killing and terrorizing people, and nothing was being done about it,” says THE COLONY writer/director Steven List.  His outrage over the case led him to contact Weisfeiler’s sister, Olga, who had been pursuing her own investigation for nearly a decade.  

 

 

Olga Weisfeiler says watching the film, which was completed in 2007, is not easy for her, but she is glad it got made.

 

 

Amnesty International estimates that more than 400 opponents of Pinochet’s dictatorship may have vanished at Colonia Dignidad, along with Weisfeiler, the only U.S. citizen reportedly brought there.  Paul Shaeffer, the former Nazi who founded the colony, was captured in Argentina in 2005, and returned to Chile where he awaits trial on political murder and kidnapping charges.  However, the case against Shaeffer has been bogged down for over two years due to opposition from powerful elements of Chile’s political and military elite still loyal to late dictator Augusto Pinochet.  Shaeffer, who is 82, has plead senility in order to avoid further prosecution, and the judge in the case, Jorge Zepeda, has rejected offers of help from U.S. agencies, including the FBI.  

 

 

Weisfeiler’s family worries that since Shaeffer quite literally knows “where the bodies are buried,” he will simply be allowed  to die in prison, taking the secrets of what happened to Boris Weisfeiler - and the hundreds of others who disappeared at Colonia Dignidad - with him to the grave.  

 

 

An opportunity to spur the stalled investigation exists in Governor Schwarzenegger’s upcoming state visit with Chilean President, Michele Bachelet.  Chile is actively pursuing an economic partnership with California, primarily to get help in combatting Chile’s energy problems and also to boost exports.  According to Weisfeiler, even though Schwarzenegger is not a federal official, an inquiry into the case by him in such a high-profile setting would keep the story in the news in Chile, and put pressure on Chilean authorities to follow through with the trial.  

 

 

 

 

Professor Boris Weisfeiler, missing in Chile since 1985

The actual Colonia Dignidad in Chile, where Professor Boris Weisfeiler was last seen alive

Paul Shaeffer, former Nazi and founder of Colonia Dignidad - presently awaiting trial in Chile

Movie Poster for the film