In September 1973, a CIA-assisted coup overthrew the democratically-elected president of Chile, ushering in the Pinochet dictatorship. In 1975, Kathleen Osberger, a recent graduate and lay volunteer from the University of Notre Dame, left for Santiago to teach in a Catholic grade school. Upon arrival, she was told a secret: the religious women she would live with sheltered dissidents in the cross-hairs of Pinochet’s secret police. Given the ever-tightening vise over the citizenry, brave and prophetic people reached out to protect the dissidents’ lives in a world without due process and where detention, torture, disappearance, and death reigned. Soon, Osberger is handed a blindfold and a warrant and must go on the run.
Join us for a conversation with Kathleen about her experience in Chile and the book she wrote about it, I Surrender: A Memoir of Chile's Dictatorship, 1975 (Orbis Books, 2023). A reception will follow. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.
Read the Observer article about her memoir here.
Presented by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies with co-sponsorship by the Center for Social Concerns.