The Dirty War – as the Argentinians call it – took place in the mid-1970s. A pretty powerful regime took control (I believe they were aligned with the military) and “disappeared” a whole generation of college students. They were brought to prisons hidden in and around many of the major cities, and most of them were executed after being interrogated, often brutally.
Literally thousands of Argentinians were lost (All of Argentina agrees about this; the only debate is whether it was 10,000 or 30,000).
A group of mothers began the crusade to find the “desaparecidos” (disappeareds) all the way back in 1977. The “Madres de la Plaza de Mayo” began meeting every Thursday in Buenos Aires, wearing white scarves as identification. They still meet every Thursday; in the meantime they’ve gotten the government to identify some 250 adopted children as “desaparecidos”, found the remains of others, and built a university and library. They’ve left their mark on Bariloche – on the grounds of the Centro Civico there are the names of some 30 desaparecidos, written in white paint along with the date of their disappearance and an image of a white scarf:
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| From Bariloche – Around |
In Cordoba, they converted a half-city-block former prison (used for the desaparecidos) to the Museo de La Memoria, where they show the names of several thousand, some of the rooms they stayed in, and some writing about their experiences. Here are some shots of the museum (it’s a slideshow; use the buttons to move through the pictures):
We spent about an hour walking around the museum – it’s a pretty powerful place.
