A MISSING GENERATION
April 2003 – 52’00”
00:01 In 1976 the military, commanded by general Videla, came to power in Argentina.
During the years of dictatorship that followed, thousands of Argentines disappeared.
For many of their relatives, the tragedy never ended.
NORA
00:30 This is a picture of my mother, with me, when I was just days or months old. This is my father; I like it a lot because it’s a typical photograph of that time, with that shirt, his moustache. I like the look on his face. This place is symbolic for me, because my mum’s there, my dad, here I am at a protest, and here’s the flag of HIJOS, I like the way it turned out. And because they’re always close by, at least here, in a photo.
My dad made this ashtray. When he’d run out of money he’d make them and try to sell them. It’s missing a few things here, but I like it a lot, because he’d make them, to get by.
This bed’s also my dad’s, used to be my dad’s. I use it now. My mum used to sleep in this room, where she studied and everything. It’s quite strong also. And there I have something I like very much, that belonged to my mum when she was a kid, it’s this toy, that I also used, it’s like a merry-go-round. It must be about 25 or 30 years old. Still works. With difficulty because it’s old.
02:30 Louder. I can’t hear you. Fucking pigs.
02:43 Well, in Argentina, there are thousands of us in these conditions. Being children of disappeared parents. We’re thousands. I don’t know the exact number.
03:30 I was in the queue to register at school, this was in 1996, when a guy gave me a flyer and said to me: I belong to HIJOS, we are children of disappeared parents, we’re organizing a chat. And he gave me a flyer. So I looked at him and said: I’m a daughter of disappeared parents as well. We stared at each other and he said me: come over and I’ll introduce you to the others. Yeah, I said, this is what I was looking for. It’s like destiny says: Nora, what do you want?, this?, here, you’ve got it.
04:11 Now a days they’re all free. We want them to see the people’s repudiation, let the people know who is this guy that’s living here. Let the neighbours know who’s living next door; so that the baker won’t sell him any bread, so that his neighbourhood may be his own jail. Then his province, his country.
04:46 Let the people recognize him, know about his past. Up to now people might think he’s just a little old man going for a walk with his dog and that he hasn’t done anything. But after the protest, everybody will know that this apparently harmless old man tortured, raped, and made our companions disappear, our parents. Then he’ll feel the protest.
05:12 The only thing they regret is leaving us alive, because they didn’t think this was going to happen to them. It’s the one thing they regret.
05:28 Nora is very similar to her mother, but she comes from both her parents. There’s a smile, a gesture, that’s from Quique. Her hair’s her father’s colour. My daughter had really dark hair, completely straight. What was her mother like ... My daughter, who I know best ... She’s a daughter with the same character as her father, identical, even in their sweat. That’s how it was. And now it fades away …
06:10 They took Quique at 11 o’clock in the morning, on the 31st of August, and they went for Iris at about 4 or 4:30 in the afternoon at her place. When we got there we understood the reality of it. That they were with the baby, who had been left behind, in the ransacked house – that’s it.
ESTELA
06:56 I never imagined, looking back and recalling thirty years ago, where I used to live in this city with my children, with my husband and where I was a teacher, an environment of friendships, an environment of family, that I would go through the things that are happening to me, being recognized as an important or prominent person and receiving the homage being paid to me. Never.
07:51 I would change all of this, in order to become that woman, and be with all my kids. It’s part of an unwanted history, but that must be lived out.
08:09 Laura, our eldest daughter, was kidnapped in 1977. She was 22 years old and a student at the University of La Plata. Looking for Laura, they kidnapped my husband Guido. They took him. He was savagely tortured, went missing for 25 days, and with the ensuing kidnapping and murder of Laura, it scarred his life. The last letter I received from Laura was dated the 16th of November 1977 where she wrote something I didn’t quite get at the time. I’m getting fatter every day. When she hadn’t yet been murdered someone let us know that she had been arrested and that she was all right and her six-month-old pregnancy was under control. We also learned that if the baby turned out to be a boy she would call him by her father’s name, Guido.
09:14 Due to a National Serviceman at the Military Hospital, on the 26th of June 1978, I’m convinced, certain that Guido was born, that he was taken away from Laura only hours later, in order to return her to the concentration camp.
09:31 Laura was murdered on the 25th of august 1978 and the body was handed to us by a police officer who said she had deceased. When I heard the word deceased, it fell on me like a … well, the shock of being told that my daughter had died … she didn’t die, they killed her. To die in bed isn’t the same as being murdered. So I started yelling at this police officer. Called him a murderer, a scoundrel. She was killed, had been kidnapped … And he says, What are you talking about? And I said, Where’s my grandson? What are you talking about, there’s no child here …
10:28 Guido, my grandson, is 24. He’s got his own life, within a false family environment. He’s living in a deceptive bubble where everything’s been changed.
10:47 We’ve been struggling as the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo for 25 years and have located 73 grandchildren. Many more are missing.
11:02 JUAN PABLO
11:05 My father was kidnapped when I was 18 months old. He was first. No one knew anything else about him. And shortly after, as I’m told, my mom was walking down the street, they picked her up, and I was with her. They put her into a car and left, and I was given to a family. I never received any love there, nothing, just mistreated, a whole bunch of things. I always had behaviour problems, problems at school, when I became an adolescent I was expelled from school. Then I started using drugs at 15.
11:59 About my dad and mum I just know what everyone has told me. They were good people. Some say I look like my dad, others say I look like my mum, or like both of them. I don’t know, I can’t really say much about it.
12:28 There was a time when I needed a mum. Maybe not a dad, but definitely a mum. Now that I’m grown up, I realize one can’t replace things. You’ve got no dad? … Here’s one for you. That’s not how things are but I think I wanted to do that. Let’s get him a mum and let’s get him a dad. My mum and dad just aren’t there and they have never been there.
13:11 I have this need to know, but I don’t know what. As a matter of fact I don’t know what I want to know.
13:31 I go to a whole saler’s and buy sweets. I get on a bus and sell them. When I’ve sold everything, I buy more and I carry on like that, I live. I buy for 25 cents and sell for 50, double. I sell 120 little boxes a day, that means 30 pesos (9 Euros). It’s a nice amount, I live off this.
14:08 Dear passengers, I’m handing these out to taste on your journey, or to give as a present. Two boxes of mints for just one peso.
14:37 It’s a tough environment. There are other hawkers, you get into trouble with the other hawkers. Or the police bother you and don’t let you sell. But the fact that I’m unemployed and yet manage to come home with 30 pesos in my pocket … that’s got nothing to do with me, that’s the will of God. The fact that there are 70 million other people selling mints, and I go to the corner and am still able to sell mine, and at night I still have my 30 pesos anyway ... that’s God’s will.
15:26 CLARA
15:34 Hopefully one day we will know what they’ve done to them. There isn’t a single night that I don’t lie in bed thinking: what have they done to my boys. There were such horrible tortures.
15:59 Death isn’t the worst for me. Ok, they were killed. But until they were killed, what they did to them … That’s what doesn’t let me be, never, when I go to bed nor when I rise. And yet I’m 87 years old and I’m not dead yet, I don’t know why. But I’d like to end it, I don’t want to suffer anymore.
16:38 (Polish) You know what I said? I speak polish. And my hometown was called Tischowky, which means land of Lublin. Do you know Lublin, Krakow? Well, Lublin was a big city but we were born in the countryside, in a very small village.
17:18 When the Nazis came, death came. For the Jews life was very hard. With my husband we decided to go to Argentina, to leave Poland, leave hell.
17:41 What happened to my family? No one knows. I don’t know where they died, how they died. All told, in my family for example, if I were to count, there’d be: brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, nephews, they’re more than 20 people. I’m the only survivor. The rest, there’s no one left of my family, not even with my surname, not even houses. They were killed. Hitler feared an epidemic. They were put on the railway lines and burned. It’s really something, best not to know about it.
18:51 They all fell. Even the village doesn’t exist. Not even the cemetery. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Everything razed to the ground.
19:06 In Argentina just my husband, my two boys and I remained. No one else. Angel Salomón Gertel is the eldest. The second is Fernando Mario Gertel. My son Angel was born in 1942, my son Fernando in 1946. Despite not having them around, I’m very proud of them.
20:02 NORA
20:17 Hi guys, we are from the HIJOS organization and we’re going to protest against a service man who participated in the dictatorship’s genocide and who tortured and killed people. A guy that lives here. Here’s a bus, if you want to join us.
20:33 When we go to this guy’s house, we previously inform the whole neighbourhood. We give flyers out to each of the neighbours so that they know who is living next door. Because we don’t believe that justice will come from the government. So we decide, let’s do it ourselves, let’s protest against this guy. We go right in front of is house and say: Neighbours, you’re living next to someone responsible of genocide.
21:20 It’s about to start and in a while we’re going to Bella Vista to do the protest.
21:32 I’m not sure up to what point the military believed that this was going to happen to them. It’s like it catches them off-guard. Now we are the ones who are fighting, who are attempting to unmask everything they wanted to cover up. A real revenge would be if they all ended up in prison. That would be great.
22:10 The protest is starting. The protest is starting. To Juan Pablo Saa.
22:21 General Saa was a general in charge of the torture, of the disappearance of people. He was a Police-chief who decided who was going to live and who should die.
22:43 If I missed them … Yes, at times I did. The thing is, I’m not gonna stop saying that I’m grateful to them for what they gave me, because in the end I had a home, a family, a father and a mother and I always knew the truth. But of course when you compare it with others, yes my parents went missing ... Your parents are missing, a generation is missing. Yes I needed them, in every-day life, for example I’d like to invite my grandparents to go to a concert but I know they are unable to do so because they are too old. When I was a little girl I often wondered why everybody had young parents and I had older parents.
24:01 Don’t worry little girl.
24:21 I remember her as if she were still alive. To me she hasn’t gone yet, that’s the problem. For me.
24:37 Many times, when I see Videla on television, something in my head goes to work … a will to kill him at any moment. But then I say to myself: I would get my family into trouble. I’m unpredictable. At any one time I can really put my foot in it. Courage I have, I just haven’t had the opportunity. That’s all ...
25:18 ESTELA
25:19 And our family was destroyed. Why? Because Laura disappeared. The family spirit we used to have was lost.
25:58 The kids are hostages. Hostages of history. The spoils of war. They were kidnapped in order to keep the children of their enemies, and to bring them up on their own terms, to make the people understand they’ve got them. There are stolen kids and we don’t know where they are. Stolen for political reasons. What the military did with them is so perverse.
26:39 Although we are well supported by society in general, that’s not the case politically, with the constitutional governments. None of them, in spite of all our requests, forced the military, with the force of the law, to confess where our grandchildren are.
27:14 This happened on the 20th of September 2002. They didn’t do it to frighten me, or to intimidate me. I’m aware they actually attempted to kill me.
27:51 JUAN PABLO
28:04 There are days I want to tell everyone to fuck off. Everyone. But you can’t tell absolutely everyone to f uc ut you can tell yourself. So I go and fuck off. It’s a way of disappearing, nobody comes to look for me here. It’s always there in my life, to disappear, get lost, to hide k off, b so that nobody knows where I am. It’s not because I like it, it’s a mental question. It’s not that I play with other people’s feelings or enjoy getting people worried about me. I’m in my world and just don’t care about anyone else.
29:00 I spent 10 years of my life here, in this place, coming every afternoon, with the kids from the neighbourhood. It’s part of my life. And a lot of drugs are done here, all kinds, whatever you want … marihuana, cocaine, crack. That was my life for quite a while. Not anymore, I’m trying to change my life but it’s really tough. Every now and then I end up here again.
29:25 I used to steal. Well, if you keep stealing there comes a time when you get arrested. I was caught, sent to institutions, put in jail. I could have easily been killed with all this trouble and stuff I went through. I could have been shot dead while on a job or been killed in prison.
In order to get out of it, I’m seeing a psychologist. He helps me a lot. I go over and talk and in some way he always throws a line out for me to catch, to think over. I’ve been through several stages in my life. You decide to burn your bridges and start to do what’s theoretically right, things to quit drugs. You start to find yourself. You go to meet the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, the psychologist, you get a job but at some point you can’t cope. It happens all the time, a lack of continuity.
31:45 CLARA
31:55 I don’t fear death. I know that after death it’s all over. I’ve already arranged to be cremated. I don’t want to be buried. Just let the ashes remain. If nothing of my children was left, then nothing of me should be either. I don’t fear death.
32:34 I don’t know where my two kids are … Whether they were thrown into the river, if they were burned, how they died. The only thing we know is that they disappeared, that they were tortured and they aren’t here anymore.
33:10 The more time passes by, the sadder it is. More suffering. Time doesn’t heal a mother’s heart. I’ve been a fighter, a revolutionary and so I taught my sons. I did. But it hurts all the same, I suffer all the same. And the more time rolls on, I just think, why suffer any longer? There isn’t a single night I don’t lie down and think: How was my son when they were torturing him?
33:58 After they kidnapped our sons, they bombed our house. They destroyed our house. My husband died because of the loss of his sons, but also because of his home.
34:26 They were great revolutionaries and they’re greatly needed today, these 30.000 children we’ve lost. If we would have had them today, something could be done. The misery and hunger we have today would be something else. There’s nothing left now.
35:00 Many times I wonder why I didn’t go completely crazy when I heard about my sons and all the rest of it. It’d be best to go mad rather than suffer day and night. And all those torturers and murderers are free!
35:34 NORA
35:36 Hello, how are you doing? You fucking pig, we’ve come to show everyone who you are. Murderer!
35:48 For almost 2 months we’ve known that yet another one responsible of genocide is wandering round this neighbourhood. Living quietly in the knowledge that in spite of the fact that in Spain judge Baltazar Garzón ordered his international arrest due to torture, kidnapping and violation of human rights committed as of 1976, nothing would happen to him here in Bella Vista. Where he knows no one’s going to touch him, because to this day only a few are aware of his black and bloody past.
36:20 Let him come out, let the pig come out onto the balcony.
36:30 We believe in people being socially convicted. If they can’t be placed in jail, then let their own neighbourhoods be their jails. Wherever he is, his cell is.
36:57 We came here to protest against him. Now the neighbours know who he is because we’ve been flyering all week. We’ve painted walls. So, the people know what kind of person they have next door. The real protest starts now.
37:15 We are helping. We’re right beside all these people.
37:20 We already felt it. The neighbours are our allies.
37:35 When I participate in HIJOS, participate in a protest or some other activity, inside I say to myself: my parents must be really proud I’m doing this. They must be happy with their daughter.
38:03 Just a while ago I was talking to them. I asked them to give me strength to look after my grandparents, because now the story’s different. My grandparents used to care for me. Now I’ve grown up I’m the one who has to take care of them. I asked them to help me do it. Instead of asking God … it’s intimate, far too intimate.
38:50 ESTELA
39:01 He left me alone. But he’s with me anyway. Guido is still … here beside me. I won’t leave this house because Guido is in every corner, in each and every memory. He’s here. But he’s gone, physically I’ve lost him. Not because of our lives, where since I was 14 I lived in parallel to him, because we met at that age. A long relationship. A marriage, children, dreams, happiness, sadness. And all this struggle. But because he was my one and only love. There’s no room for anything else but him. And I carry him with me, and I think that what really keeps me from snapping, what doesn’t let me collapse, is precisely this strength and affection that transcends death.
40:27 He was waiting for his grandson Guido. He was the grandson he never knew. I think he was aware that he wasn’t going to see him. And I feel so sorry he won’t be there the day I’ll find my grandson, so that he could tell his grandson, tell Guido, what his mother was like, Laura, because he kne w her well.
41:14 I don’t know how many years I still have ahead – I hope to God I’ll have many years to keep on struggling; but I also think that time is short. It’s despairing and many grandfathers and mothers have died without meeting their grandchildren. But that’s the way it is. I have to hug him. I don’t want to die without having had him in my arms. I don’t know if he will love me or not, but to see him, recognize him and be able to say to my daughter: Laura, we’ve found him. That would be the end of my own personal struggle. I believe this is a dream that will never abandon me. I’m faithful, I do have hope.
42:18 JUAN PABLO
42:23 My daughter lives next-door, downstairs. I used to go to the balcony to see her come and go, with my ex-wife, who lives next-door as well. I’d peer over the balcony and watch them. It was a way of seeing my daughter. The only way I had, because I didn’t want her to see me. I didn’t want her to. I was doing drugs, in a bad way. I felt too rotten to face my daughter. I was drugged, hadn’t had a bath in a week, very depressed, not feeding myself and just thinking about getting high, getting high, getting high.
43:27 I quarrelled with my wife because I did everything I could to be with her and then I realised that that was it. All I have is my daughter. She’s all I have. I see her once a week in a park. I can’t help thinking that she needs me. Her mother tries to exclude me all the time, though she may deny it, but she excludes all the time. I don’t want her to turn 17 and say: You were never there for me.
44:24 Thank you Lord. I thank you my Lord Jesus.
44:52 I couldn’t go on that way. I went to a church. I was desperate, very bad. I’m no use, useless. I went to the church. Completely surrendering myself. Do something with me.
45:36
They sent me somewhere, a place called ‘Meeting Point’ and there I began to feel the presence of God. It’s very strong, you’ve got to live it, I can’t explain it to you.
45:56 I came back and forgot about God. And when you forget Him, the devil appears immediately and takes a hold of you. I ended up once again in the world of drugs, very bad.
46:18 I tried several times to stop using drugs but without success. I still do them once in a while because I know God forgives me. I do want to abandon drugs but there are a lot of things I do not want to abandon. Many things the church doesn’t want. But I do them, but supposedly the church says I shouldn’t, but for me they’re great.
47:24 If I had had a father and a mother, things would have been different. It would have been another story, I’m sure. I’d be Juan Pablo with his father and mother, in a different way.
48:00 CLARA
48:11 The Plaza de Mayo for me is a symbol of the struggle. Even if it would rain or hail, I would say: In memory of my sons I’m going to the Plaza on Thursdays. I fell and broke my shoulder and had a plaster fit for many months. Since then I haven’t been back. The years, you know, the years.
49:15 Now I’m just at home. I can’t read, I can’t see. I can’t go to a meeting because I can’t hear. What’s this life for? Can you tell me? It’s death in life.
49:50 I’m not religious. I don’t believe in another world. I will be cremated, it has all been arranged. For the donation of my organs. Because I wondered, being so old, if my organs might be useful to others. But I was told they are. For people older than me they’re still useful.
50:43 NORA
51:06 Juanita is now two months old, which is the same age I had when they kidnapped my mum and dad. It must have been terrible for her to be separated from me when I was such a little baby.
April 2003 – 52’00”
00:01 In 1976 the military, commanded by general Videla, came to power in Argentina.
During the years of dictatorship that followed, thousands of Argentines disappeared.
For many of their relatives, the tragedy never ended.
NORA
00:30 This is a picture of my mother, with me, when I was just days or months old. This is my father; I like it a lot because it’s a typical photograph of that time, with that shirt, his moustache. I like the look on his face. This place is symbolic for me, because my mum’s there, my dad, here I am at a protest, and here’s the flag of HIJOS, I like the way it turned out. And because they’re always close by, at least here, in a photo.
My dad made this ashtray. When he’d run out of money he’d make them and try to sell them. It’s missing a few things here, but I like it a lot, because he’d make them, to get by.
This bed’s also my dad’s, used to be my dad’s. I use it now. My mum used to sleep in this room, where she studied and everything. It’s quite strong also. And there I have something I like very much, that belonged to my mum when she was a kid, it’s this toy, that I also used, it’s like a merry-go-round. It must be about 25 or 30 years old. Still works. With difficulty because it’s old.
02:30 Louder. I can’t hear you. Fucking pigs.
02:43 Well, in Argentina, there are thousands of us in these conditions. Being children of disappeared parents. We’re thousands. I don’t know the exact number.
03:30 I was in the queue to register at school, this was in 1996, when a guy gave me a flyer and said to me: I belong to HIJOS, we are children of disappeared parents, we’re organizing a chat. And he gave me a flyer. So I looked at him and said: I’m a daughter of disappeared parents as well. We stared at each other and he said me: come over and I’ll introduce you to the others. Yeah, I said, this is what I was looking for. It’s like destiny says: Nora, what do you want?, this?, here, you’ve got it.
04:11 Now a days they’re all free. We want them to see the people’s repudiation, let the people know who is this guy that’s living here. Let the neighbours know who’s living next door; so that the baker won’t sell him any bread, so that his neighbourhood may be his own jail. Then his province, his country.
04:46 Let the people recognize him, know about his past. Up to now people might think he’s just a little old man going for a walk with his dog and that he hasn’t done anything. But after the protest, everybody will know that this apparently harmless old man tortured, raped, and made our companions disappear, our parents. Then he’ll feel the protest.
05:12 The only thing they regret is leaving us alive, because they didn’t think this was going to happen to them. It’s the one thing they regret.
05:28 Nora is very similar to her mother, but she comes from both her parents. There’s a smile, a gesture, that’s from Quique. Her hair’s her father’s colour. My daughter had really dark hair, completely straight. What was her mother like ... My daughter, who I know best ... She’s a daughter with the same character as her father, identical, even in their sweat. That’s how it was. And now it fades away …
06:10 They took Quique at 11 o’clock in the morning, on the 31st of August, and they went for Iris at about 4 or 4:30 in the afternoon at her place. When we got there we understood the reality of it. That they were with the baby, who had been left behind, in the ransacked house – that’s it.
ESTELA
06:56 I never imagined, looking back and recalling thirty years ago, where I used to live in this city with my children, with my husband and where I was a teacher, an environment of friendships, an environment of family, that I would go through the things that are happening to me, being recognized as an important or prominent person and receiving the homage being paid to me. Never.
07:51 I would change all of this, in order to become that woman, and be with all my kids. It’s part of an unwanted history, but that must be lived out.
08:09 Laura, our eldest daughter, was kidnapped in 1977. She was 22 years old and a student at the University of La Plata. Looking for Laura, they kidnapped my husband Guido. They took him. He was savagely tortured, went missing for 25 days, and with the ensuing kidnapping and murder of Laura, it scarred his life. The last letter I received from Laura was dated the 16th of November 1977 where she wrote something I didn’t quite get at the time. I’m getting fatter every day. When she hadn’t yet been murdered someone let us know that she had been arrested and that she was all right and her six-month-old pregnancy was under control. We also learned that if the baby turned out to be a boy she would call him by her father’s name, Guido.
09:14 Due to a National Serviceman at the Military Hospital, on the 26th of June 1978, I’m convinced, certain that Guido was born, that he was taken away from Laura only hours later, in order to return her to the concentration camp.
09:31 Laura was murdered on the 25th of august 1978 and the body was handed to us by a police officer who said she had deceased. When I heard the word deceased, it fell on me like a … well, the shock of being told that my daughter had died … she didn’t die, they killed her. To die in bed isn’t the same as being murdered. So I started yelling at this police officer. Called him a murderer, a scoundrel. She was killed, had been kidnapped … And he says, What are you talking about? And I said, Where’s my grandson? What are you talking about, there’s no child here …
10:28 Guido, my grandson, is 24. He’s got his own life, within a false family environment. He’s living in a deceptive bubble where everything’s been changed.
10:47 We’ve been struggling as the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo for 25 years and have located 73 grandchildren. Many more are missing.
11:02 JUAN PABLO
11:05 My father was kidnapped when I was 18 months old. He was first. No one knew anything else about him. And shortly after, as I’m told, my mom was walking down the street, they picked her up, and I was with her. They put her into a car and left, and I was given to a family. I never received any love there, nothing, just mistreated, a whole bunch of things. I always had behaviour problems, problems at school, when I became an adolescent I was expelled from school. Then I started using drugs at 15.
11:59 About my dad and mum I just know what everyone has told me. They were good people. Some say I look like my dad, others say I look like my mum, or like both of them. I don’t know, I can’t really say much about it.
12:28 There was a time when I needed a mum. Maybe not a dad, but definitely a mum. Now that I’m grown up, I realize one can’t replace things. You’ve got no dad? … Here’s one for you. That’s not how things are but I think I wanted to do that. Let’s get him a mum and let’s get him a dad. My mum and dad just aren’t there and they have never been there.
13:11 I have this need to know, but I don’t know what. As a matter of fact I don’t know what I want to know.
13:31 I go to a whole saler’s and buy sweets. I get on a bus and sell them. When I’ve sold everything, I buy more and I carry on like that, I live. I buy for 25 cents and sell for 50, double. I sell 120 little boxes a day, that means 30 pesos (9 Euros). It’s a nice amount, I live off this.
14:08 Dear passengers, I’m handing these out to taste on your journey, or to give as a present. Two boxes of mints for just one peso.
14:37 It’s a tough environment. There are other hawkers, you get into trouble with the other hawkers. Or the police bother you and don’t let you sell. But the fact that I’m unemployed and yet manage to come home with 30 pesos in my pocket … that’s got nothing to do with me, that’s the will of God. The fact that there are 70 million other people selling mints, and I go to the corner and am still able to sell mine, and at night I still have my 30 pesos anyway ... that’s God’s will.
15:26 CLARA
15:34 Hopefully one day we will know what they’ve done to them. There isn’t a single night that I don’t lie in bed thinking: what have they done to my boys. There were such horrible tortures.
15:59 Death isn’t the worst for me. Ok, they were killed. But until they were killed, what they did to them … That’s what doesn’t let me be, never, when I go to bed nor when I rise. And yet I’m 87 years old and I’m not dead yet, I don’t know why. But I’d like to end it, I don’t want to suffer anymore.
16:38 (Polish) You know what I said? I speak polish. And my hometown was called Tischowky, which means land of Lublin. Do you know Lublin, Krakow? Well, Lublin was a big city but we were born in the countryside, in a very small village.
17:18 When the Nazis came, death came. For the Jews life was very hard. With my husband we decided to go to Argentina, to leave Poland, leave hell.
17:41 What happened to my family? No one knows. I don’t know where they died, how they died. All told, in my family for example, if I were to count, there’d be: brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, nephews, they’re more than 20 people. I’m the only survivor. The rest, there’s no one left of my family, not even with my surname, not even houses. They were killed. Hitler feared an epidemic. They were put on the railway lines and burned. It’s really something, best not to know about it.
18:51 They all fell. Even the village doesn’t exist. Not even the cemetery. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Everything razed to the ground.
19:06 In Argentina just my husband, my two boys and I remained. No one else. Angel Salomón Gertel is the eldest. The second is Fernando Mario Gertel. My son Angel was born in 1942, my son Fernando in 1946. Despite not having them around, I’m very proud of them.
20:02 NORA
20:17 Hi guys, we are from the HIJOS organization and we’re going to protest against a service man who participated in the dictatorship’s genocide and who tortured and killed people. A guy that lives here. Here’s a bus, if you want to join us.
20:33 When we go to this guy’s house, we previously inform the whole neighbourhood. We give flyers out to each of the neighbours so that they know who is living next door. Because we don’t believe that justice will come from the government. So we decide, let’s do it ourselves, let’s protest against this guy. We go right in front of is house and say: Neighbours, you’re living next to someone responsible of genocide.
21:20 It’s about to start and in a while we’re going to Bella Vista to do the protest.
21:32 I’m not sure up to what point the military believed that this was going to happen to them. It’s like it catches them off-guard. Now we are the ones who are fighting, who are attempting to unmask everything they wanted to cover up. A real revenge would be if they all ended up in prison. That would be great.
22:10 The protest is starting. The protest is starting. To Juan Pablo Saa.
22:21 General Saa was a general in charge of the torture, of the disappearance of people. He was a Police-chief who decided who was going to live and who should die.
22:43 If I missed them … Yes, at times I did. The thing is, I’m not gonna stop saying that I’m grateful to them for what they gave me, because in the end I had a home, a family, a father and a mother and I always knew the truth. But of course when you compare it with others, yes my parents went missing ... Your parents are missing, a generation is missing. Yes I needed them, in every-day life, for example I’d like to invite my grandparents to go to a concert but I know they are unable to do so because they are too old. When I was a little girl I often wondered why everybody had young parents and I had older parents.
24:01 Don’t worry little girl.
24:21 I remember her as if she were still alive. To me she hasn’t gone yet, that’s the problem. For me.
24:37 Many times, when I see Videla on television, something in my head goes to work … a will to kill him at any moment. But then I say to myself: I would get my family into trouble. I’m unpredictable. At any one time I can really put my foot in it. Courage I have, I just haven’t had the opportunity. That’s all ...
25:18 ESTELA
25:19 And our family was destroyed. Why? Because Laura disappeared. The family spirit we used to have was lost.
25:58 The kids are hostages. Hostages of history. The spoils of war. They were kidnapped in order to keep the children of their enemies, and to bring them up on their own terms, to make the people understand they’ve got them. There are stolen kids and we don’t know where they are. Stolen for political reasons. What the military did with them is so perverse.
26:39 Although we are well supported by society in general, that’s not the case politically, with the constitutional governments. None of them, in spite of all our requests, forced the military, with the force of the law, to confess where our grandchildren are.
27:14 This happened on the 20th of September 2002. They didn’t do it to frighten me, or to intimidate me. I’m aware they actually attempted to kill me.
27:51 JUAN PABLO
28:04 There are days I want to tell everyone to fuck off. Everyone. But you can’t tell absolutely everyone to f uc ut you can tell yourself. So I go and fuck off. It’s a way of disappearing, nobody comes to look for me here. It’s always there in my life, to disappear, get lost, to hide k off, b so that nobody knows where I am. It’s not because I like it, it’s a mental question. It’s not that I play with other people’s feelings or enjoy getting people worried about me. I’m in my world and just don’t care about anyone else.
29:00 I spent 10 years of my life here, in this place, coming every afternoon, with the kids from the neighbourhood. It’s part of my life. And a lot of drugs are done here, all kinds, whatever you want … marihuana, cocaine, crack. That was my life for quite a while. Not anymore, I’m trying to change my life but it’s really tough. Every now and then I end up here again.
29:25 I used to steal. Well, if you keep stealing there comes a time when you get arrested. I was caught, sent to institutions, put in jail. I could have easily been killed with all this trouble and stuff I went through. I could have been shot dead while on a job or been killed in prison.
In order to get out of it, I’m seeing a psychologist. He helps me a lot. I go over and talk and in some way he always throws a line out for me to catch, to think over. I’ve been through several stages in my life. You decide to burn your bridges and start to do what’s theoretically right, things to quit drugs. You start to find yourself. You go to meet the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, the psychologist, you get a job but at some point you can’t cope. It happens all the time, a lack of continuity.
31:45 CLARA
31:55 I don’t fear death. I know that after death it’s all over. I’ve already arranged to be cremated. I don’t want to be buried. Just let the ashes remain. If nothing of my children was left, then nothing of me should be either. I don’t fear death.
32:34 I don’t know where my two kids are … Whether they were thrown into the river, if they were burned, how they died. The only thing we know is that they disappeared, that they were tortured and they aren’t here anymore.
33:10 The more time passes by, the sadder it is. More suffering. Time doesn’t heal a mother’s heart. I’ve been a fighter, a revolutionary and so I taught my sons. I did. But it hurts all the same, I suffer all the same. And the more time rolls on, I just think, why suffer any longer? There isn’t a single night I don’t lie down and think: How was my son when they were torturing him?
33:58 After they kidnapped our sons, they bombed our house. They destroyed our house. My husband died because of the loss of his sons, but also because of his home.
34:26 They were great revolutionaries and they’re greatly needed today, these 30.000 children we’ve lost. If we would have had them today, something could be done. The misery and hunger we have today would be something else. There’s nothing left now.
35:00 Many times I wonder why I didn’t go completely crazy when I heard about my sons and all the rest of it. It’d be best to go mad rather than suffer day and night. And all those torturers and murderers are free!
35:34 NORA
35:36 Hello, how are you doing? You fucking pig, we’ve come to show everyone who you are. Murderer!
35:48 For almost 2 months we’ve known that yet another one responsible of genocide is wandering round this neighbourhood. Living quietly in the knowledge that in spite of the fact that in Spain judge Baltazar Garzón ordered his international arrest due to torture, kidnapping and violation of human rights committed as of 1976, nothing would happen to him here in Bella Vista. Where he knows no one’s going to touch him, because to this day only a few are aware of his black and bloody past.
36:20 Let him come out, let the pig come out onto the balcony.
36:30 We believe in people being socially convicted. If they can’t be placed in jail, then let their own neighbourhoods be their jails. Wherever he is, his cell is.
36:57 We came here to protest against him. Now the neighbours know who he is because we’ve been flyering all week. We’ve painted walls. So, the people know what kind of person they have next door. The real protest starts now.
37:15 We are helping. We’re right beside all these people.
37:20 We already felt it. The neighbours are our allies.
37:35 When I participate in HIJOS, participate in a protest or some other activity, inside I say to myself: my parents must be really proud I’m doing this. They must be happy with their daughter.
38:03 Just a while ago I was talking to them. I asked them to give me strength to look after my grandparents, because now the story’s different. My grandparents used to care for me. Now I’ve grown up I’m the one who has to take care of them. I asked them to help me do it. Instead of asking God … it’s intimate, far too intimate.
38:50 ESTELA
39:01 He left me alone. But he’s with me anyway. Guido is still … here beside me. I won’t leave this house because Guido is in every corner, in each and every memory. He’s here. But he’s gone, physically I’ve lost him. Not because of our lives, where since I was 14 I lived in parallel to him, because we met at that age. A long relationship. A marriage, children, dreams, happiness, sadness. And all this struggle. But because he was my one and only love. There’s no room for anything else but him. And I carry him with me, and I think that what really keeps me from snapping, what doesn’t let me collapse, is precisely this strength and affection that transcends death.
40:27 He was waiting for his grandson Guido. He was the grandson he never knew. I think he was aware that he wasn’t going to see him. And I feel so sorry he won’t be there the day I’ll find my grandson, so that he could tell his grandson, tell Guido, what his mother was like, Laura, because he kne w her well.
41:14 I don’t know how many years I still have ahead – I hope to God I’ll have many years to keep on struggling; but I also think that time is short. It’s despairing and many grandfathers and mothers have died without meeting their grandchildren. But that’s the way it is. I have to hug him. I don’t want to die without having had him in my arms. I don’t know if he will love me or not, but to see him, recognize him and be able to say to my daughter: Laura, we’ve found him. That would be the end of my own personal struggle. I believe this is a dream that will never abandon me. I’m faithful, I do have hope.
42:18 JUAN PABLO
42:23 My daughter lives next-door, downstairs. I used to go to the balcony to see her come and go, with my ex-wife, who lives next-door as well. I’d peer over the balcony and watch them. It was a way of seeing my daughter. The only way I had, because I didn’t want her to see me. I didn’t want her to. I was doing drugs, in a bad way. I felt too rotten to face my daughter. I was drugged, hadn’t had a bath in a week, very depressed, not feeding myself and just thinking about getting high, getting high, getting high.
43:27 I quarrelled with my wife because I did everything I could to be with her and then I realised that that was it. All I have is my daughter. She’s all I have. I see her once a week in a park. I can’t help thinking that she needs me. Her mother tries to exclude me all the time, though she may deny it, but she excludes all the time. I don’t want her to turn 17 and say: You were never there for me.
44:24 Thank you Lord. I thank you my Lord Jesus.
44:52 I couldn’t go on that way. I went to a church. I was desperate, very bad. I’m no use, useless. I went to the church. Completely surrendering myself. Do something with me.
45:36
They sent me somewhere, a place called ‘Meeting Point’ and there I began to feel the presence of God. It’s very strong, you’ve got to live it, I can’t explain it to you.
45:56 I came back and forgot about God. And when you forget Him, the devil appears immediately and takes a hold of you. I ended up once again in the world of drugs, very bad.
46:18 I tried several times to stop using drugs but without success. I still do them once in a while because I know God forgives me. I do want to abandon drugs but there are a lot of things I do not want to abandon. Many things the church doesn’t want. But I do them, but supposedly the church says I shouldn’t, but for me they’re great.
47:24 If I had had a father and a mother, things would have been different. It would have been another story, I’m sure. I’d be Juan Pablo with his father and mother, in a different way.
48:00 CLARA
48:11 The Plaza de Mayo for me is a symbol of the struggle. Even if it would rain or hail, I would say: In memory of my sons I’m going to the Plaza on Thursdays. I fell and broke my shoulder and had a plaster fit for many months. Since then I haven’t been back. The years, you know, the years.
49:15 Now I’m just at home. I can’t read, I can’t see. I can’t go to a meeting because I can’t hear. What’s this life for? Can you tell me? It’s death in life.
49:50 I’m not religious. I don’t believe in another world. I will be cremated, it has all been arranged. For the donation of my organs. Because I wondered, being so old, if my organs might be useful to others. But I was told they are. For people older than me they’re still useful.
50:43 NORA
51:06 Juanita is now two months old, which is the same age I had when they kidnapped my mum and dad. It must have been terrible for her to be separated from me when I was such a little baby.