He had a low profile, although he enjoyed enormous privileges within Colonia Dignidad. She was the protector and defender of her father, the sinister leader of the German settlement, Paul Schäfer. These are some of the characteristics of Paul’s adoptive daughter, Rebeca Schäfer, who died last Wednesday, March 1, in southern Germany from digestive system cancer. She was 55 years old.
Rebeca was born in 1967, registered under the name of Rebeca del Carmen Valenzuela Soto. There are several versions about how she arrived in Colonia Dignidad, the enclave of German immigrants located since 1961 in Parral, Maule Region. What is clear is that her adoption was fraudulent, as happened repeatedly in the settlement.
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Rebeca, apparently, never wanted to know her roots. Of all the children appropriated by Colonia Dignidad, she was the only one who was not reunited with her family. She confirms it to The counter one of the survivors of the settlement, Efraín Vedder.
Vedder says that Rebeca had a “low profile”, with a submissive character. Journalist Carola Fuentes – who led a report on the ‘Contacto’ program that led to the capture of the then octogenarian Paul Schäfer in Argentina in March 2005 – recalls that the woman “was a very frightened person, who didn’t look me in the eye.”
“Low profile”, but full of privileges.
Schäfer’s “Iron Fence”
The lawyer for victims of Colonia Dignidad, Hernán Fernández, reports that Rebeca Schäfer “had privileges and actively participated in actions of power that harmed the settlers.”
“When we were looking for the missing, kidnapped children, as a lawyer in the case, I had to see the records signed by Rebeca Schäfer herself. She was an administrative official of the criminal bureaucracy of Colonia Dignidad,” Fernández details.
Along these lines, she says that “she held administrative control posts in the family casino and in the Bulnes compound in the neighborhood, which is why I say it responsibly. Paul Schäfer and the other hierarchs had so much confidence in her that they put her in charge of those tasks.”
Paul Schäfer disappeared from the country in 1997. He was a fugitive from justice until 2005, when he was arrested in the town of Las Acacias, located kilometers from Buenos Aires, after the journalist Carola Fuentes found him with his team from the ‘Contacto’ program. of Channel 13. The leader of Colonia Dignidad had a group of bodyguards and Rebeca was in charge of his care.
Rebeca was part of the “iron fence that protected Paul Schäfer in Argentina,” explains Fernández.
Schäfer’s scream
At the time of her arrest, Schäfer yelled asking that Rebeca not be detained, recalled the lawyer for the victims of Colonia Dignidad.
“Paul Schäfer, when he was being detained and when the handcuffs were being put on him, knowing that his final hour of impunity was coming, he lost his calm and shouted to ask that Rebeca Schäfer not be handcuffed or not detained,” he reveals.
However, the police personnel did not listen to Schäfer’s pleas and also detained Rebeca.
“(Rebeca) risked the freedom she still had in Argentina, because later they managed to get out of jail in Argentina, because extradition processes were underway so that, via extradition, they could be tried in Chile,” Fernández points out.
“Rebeca turned herself in. She crossed the Libertadores Pass and was arrested upon arrival in Chile. She decided to turn herself in and be arrested again in Chile just to be able to be with her adoptive father Paul Schäfer,” he adds.
According to the lawyer, Rebeca was not sentenced due to the father-daughter relationship with Schäfer. “Our legislation considers that the children of the parents are not concealers. The trial considered that Rebeca had the status of daughter of Paul Schäfer,” she explains.
The Chilean justice sentenced the leader of Colonia Dignidad to 30 years in prison for the abuses committed in the settlement. Schäfer died in April 2010, in the former Santiago Penitentiary. Rebecca was present at the funeral.
peter schmidt
What happened to Rebeca after the death of her adoptive father? There is not much clarity about her life after 2010. It is known that she has settled in southern Germany since 2017, along with Peter Schmidt, who was also part of Schäfer’s “iron fence”.
Peter is the son of Hermann Schmidt, who was the formal president of the colony. Ephraim Vedder notes that Peter “was a cold man.” He points out that he was a guard. “He would go out night and day looking for and capturing people that he uprooted,” he recounts.
“He had the job of watching people (…), he had a revolver,” he points out.
“He never collaborated with justice”
Hernán Fernández points out that Rebeca Schäfer “never collaborated with justice or had any signs of repentance for the serious crimes committed by the hierarchs and by Paul Schäfer.” In this sense, he believes that Rebeca “took many secrets and many keys to the grave.”
For her part, the writer Lola Larra (Claudia Larraguibel), author of the book Sprinters: the children of Colonia Dignidadpoints out that “the protagonists of this story are dying, victims and perpetrators are dying. If the proceedings that justice in Chile and justice in Germany have to do are not rushed, there will be no one to compensate.”
Rebeca’s death, last Wednesday, brought to life the macabre story of Colonia Dignidad and its pedophile leader, Paul Schäfer. The German enclave was also in the news at the beginning of January of this year when it was learned of the designation, by Congress, of former senator and Minister of Justice Hernán Larraín to integrate the Commission of 24 experts in charge of drafting the proposal for a new Constitution.
Larraín was an important defender of Paul Schäfer, who was a member of the Corporation of Friends of Colonia Dignidad, and this motivated the Association for Memory and Human Rights Colonia Dignidad to declare, at the end of January, that “we repudiate the designation of Hernán Larraín as expert to write the New Constitution. Character closely linked to the protection of Colonia Dignidad, place where crimes against humanity were committed”.
