September 2023 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the military assault and coup in Chile that overthrew and killed democratically-elected socialist President Salvador Allende and set General Augusto Pinochet in power—an effort backed by the United States. The destruction of lives that followed has been recognized, yet it is too often allowed to be forgotten into a hazy past. The Georgetown Americas Institute and the Americas Forum are pleased to host a discussion with author Kathleen Osberger, moderated by Hannah Bomberg (G’24), to reflect on Osberger’s own experience during the dictatorship and her book I Surrender: A Memoir of Chile's Dictatorship, 1975 (2023).
Featuring
Kathleen Osberger is the author of I Surrender: A Memoir of Chile's Dictatorship, 1975 (2023). Osberger grew up in South Bend, Indiana. During her undergraduate years at Notre Dame, she studied in Spain, followed by a summer of social service in Panama. After graduation in 1975, she went to Chile to teach in a Catholic grade school. Upon her arrival in Santiago, she learned a secret: the religious women she lived with sheltered dissidents in the crosshairs of Pinochet’s secret police. Soon events crescendoed, and Osberger was handed a blindfold, a warrant, and went on the run. I Surrender details the work of the religious, clergy, and Chilean citizens who risked their lives to save people facing torture and death.
Hannah Bomberg (SFS’23, G’24) graduated with an undergraduate degree in international politics from Georgetown University in 2023 and will earn an M.A. in Latin American studies from Georgetown in 2024. She grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and is of Mexican and Uruguayan heritage. Bomberg served as an intern for Congressman Joaquin Castro, worked on human rights in the Washington Office on Latin America, and in summer 2023, she worked with La Morada, an NGO defending women’s rights in Chile.
