Strangers in a Strange Land

On January 24, 1939, while the earth shook Concepción, Federico and Ana Seelmann and their two children left Germany. “We had no idea we would end up in Chile,” says Gunter Seelmann, who was eight at the time. They had visas for the United States but while they waited in the Netherlands for their grandmother’s visa that never arrived, their own visas to the United States expired. The last visas left were for Chile. “I can assure you that my parents did not know where Chile was, if it was in Africa, Asia, or Oceania,” he adds.¹ As he climbed