The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith today revealed that Julio and Eduardo Budnik Schwartzman, Chilean Jews who disappeared on July 22 and were believed to have been political prisoners, are “well and completely free.”
According to Burton S. Levinson, chairman of ADL’s Latin American affairs committee, the two brothers returned to their homes in Santiago on Aug. 15. Levinson said there has been no explanation of what happened to them. At the time of their disappearance, government officials told representatives of B’nai B’rith and other organizations which made inquiries that they had no knowledge of where the Budnik brothers were.
The two had held important industrial posts under the Salvador Allende government. On the day of their disappearance, their office was ransacked and their cars removed from an adjacent parking garage. On July 24, the Budnik family received an anonymous phone call telling them that the cars could be found near the national stadium.
In an effort to aid the Budnik family, B’nai B’rith representatives had appealed to the Chilean ambassadors in the United States and Canada for information on the brothers. Levinson expressed satisfaction today that efforts to secure their freedom had been successful.
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.
