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Around one million Chileans
were forced into exile

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by the military coup
on 11 September 1973.

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We tried to stage plays in Chile,
we put on plays.

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We naively thought that if we
produced theatre for children

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it would not be so dangerous and subversive.

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But some of us were arrested
and even disappeared, killed.

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At the time, my wife and I were
members of the Communist Party of Chile.

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It was very dangerous.

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Not only for communists, but for
anyone who was politically organized.

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One weekend, I was visiting my parents,
who didn’t live in Santiago,

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and a woman who knew us came
and told us to leave the country immediately.

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She told us they had information
that we were going to be arrested.

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Many people had to leave the country,
it didn’t matter where to.

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Anywhere they would be
taken in.

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But our small group, we
definitely wanted to go to the GDR.

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We wanted to see what real socialism
was with our own eyes.

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We wanted to experience the difference
between the idea that we had

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and really existing socialism.

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The second reason was artistic.
We were a theatre group and

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the Berliner Ensemble, Brecht’s theatre,
was an inspiration for us.

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We wanted to discover it for ourselves.