The family of a missing Chilean Jew has finally convinced Chilean authorities that the body of a man found near El Pillar, Argentina last summer and identified as Juan Carlos Perelman, was In fact not the remains of their relative who disappeared. Argentine police have established that the documents found near the body were forgeries, it was disclosed here by Rabbi Morton M. Rosenthal, director of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League’s Latin American affairs department.
Similar forgeries led to the erroneous identification of another body found at El Pillar as that of Luis Alberio Guendelman Wisniak, a member of the Chilean Jewish community who is also missing. The discovery of the bodies led some government-controlled newspapers in Chile to claim that the missing men were Marxists who faked their disappearances to embarrass the Chilean government and were later assassinated by guerrilla groups they joined, Rabbi Rosenthal reported.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
