With its pristine swimming pool, manicured lawns and lush forest backdrop, Villa Baviera, a German-themed settlement of 122 souls in southern Chile, looks like the perfect holiday getaway.

But Colonia Dignidad, as it was previously known, is a byword for horror, as the former home of a brutal cult that was used for torturing and killing dissidents under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

Twenty years after the cult leader, former Wehrmacht soldier Paul Schaefer, was jailed for the sexual abuse and torture of children at the colony, the Chilean state wants to turn it into a memorial for the victims of the country's 1973-1990 dictatorship.

In June last year, President Gabriel Boric ordered that 116 hectares (287 acres) of the 4,800-hectare site, an area including the residents' homes, a hotel, a restaurant, and several food processing factories, be expropriated to make way for a center of remembrance.

But some of the inhabitants, who were separated from their families as children, subjected to forced labour, and in some cases, sexually abused, say they are being victimized all over........

© International Business Times