I Surrender: A Memoir of Chile's Dictatorship, 1975

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 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, a warrant, and must go on the run. I Surrender depicts the solidarity of the Chilean people and the transformational role of nuns and priests dedicated to serving the poor, while highlighting the changing and challenged Catholic Church.

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 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, a warrant, and must go on the run. I Surrender depicts the solidarity of the Chilean people and the transformational role of nuns and priests dedicated to serving the poor, while highlighting the changing and challenged Catholic Church.