The long and fruitful relationship between a Nazi criminal and Pinochet

BarcelonaWhen the police arrested Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998, Philippe Sands, an international law expert and writer (London, 1960), received a call. Pinochet's lawyers offered him the opportunity to participate in the case and argue for his immunity as head of state. "My wife [the daughter of a Republican exile] threatened to divorce me if I did it, so I didn't accept," he explains with a smile. He followed the entire trial. Almost two decades later, in 2015, he came across the name Walther Rauff. It appeared in a letter from an SS leader, Otto Wächter, recommending a route he could take to escape justice. "At the time, I didn't recognize the name, but later I remembered that I had read it in Bruce Chatwin's books (In Patagonia) and Roberto Bolaño (Chilean Night). I eventually found out that he had ended up as the manager of a crab canning company in Patagonia," Sands recalls.

It took him several years to establish the relationship between Pinochet and the Nazi criminal Rauff. As if it were a mystery novel, he added information not only about gassing vans in 1941 and 1942, but also about the use of refrigerators to help disappear victims between 1974 and 1975 in Chile. Calle Londres 38. Two cases of impunity: Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia (Anagrama; translated into Catalan by Ariadna Pous), Sands analyzes the trial of the Chilean dictator and, with the help of witnesses, provides previously unpublished information. "One of the revelations in the book that has caused quite a stir in Chile has been a ten-page dossier that was prepared at the time to fabricate the lie that Pinochet suffered from dementia and, therefore, could not be tried in Spain. I have no doubt that this document was produced with the knowledge and direct or indirect support of the government." Another important issue revealed by the book is the connection between Nazi fugitives and crimes perpetrated by Latin American dictatorships. "There had always been rumors, but until now we had no proof. I provide five witnesses who prove it," says the lawyer and writer, who is in Barcelona to participate in a dialogue at the CCCB and to speak at the La Central bookstore about the books that have most influenced him.

The Spanish Intervention

Pinochet was arrested at the request of the Spanish judge Baltasar GarzónThe request was for crimes of genocide, torture, and forced disappearances. It was historic: for the first time, a former head of state was arrested in another country for having committed an international crime. "I wonder what legitimacy Spain had, which has never done any kind of justice in relation to what happened during the Civil War. I think morally it didn't have any," says Sands.

The fact that Franco's crimes have not been prosecuted in Spain is not an isolated case, according to Sands. "The United Kingdom, for example, has not done so in relation to colonialism, slavery, or Northern Ireland. Besides, there are many ways to do justice or confront the past. For example, through literature." Sands wonders whether he would prefer to win a trial or write a great book. "Justice is not the sole preserve of the courts; justice can be done in many ways," he argues. The victims were left with a bitter taste in their mouths. Both Rauff and Pinochet went unpunished in the strictest sense: they were not tried. Nor were they completely free, according to Sands. "Pinochet suffered house arrest, could no longer walk the streets, and ended up devastated. Rauff, who died in 1984, lived in great fear; every day he feared being arrested," Sands argues.

Rauff's grandson attended the book launch in Chile with his daughter. "It was very important to me, because my only intention was to tell the facts and let the reader come to their own conclusions," says Sands.