Emilie Klingenberger died in Auschwitz-Birkenau long before the dirty war in Argentina. But the blog post about her stolperstein in Prague resonated with Argentines 7,000 miles away. It prompted them to post a flurry of emotional comments about Argentina’s dirty war, or guerra sucia, on my Facebook page — and spurred me to learn more about Argentine history.
Operation Condor in Argentina
From 1976 to 1983, Argentina was ruled by a military dictatorship, or junta, that overthrew a weak, civilian administration. The new government participated fully in Operation Condor— a clandestine, U.S.-backed alliance of South American countries during the Cold War. Their goal was to extinguish Communist or left-leaning influences throughout the region.
Argentina’s “Hitler of the Pampa”
During those eight years, the dictatorship pursued what it called la guerra sucia. The military, police, and right-wing death squads targeted actual and perceived opponents of the regime. Large American corporations doing business in Argentina sometimes helped. Communists, union members, press critics, leftist high school and college students, and their supporters were targeted for elimination. Kidnapping, torture, rape, and murder were systemic.
More than 600 secret detention centers. Mass shootings and common graves. Drugged detainees tossed into the ocean from military planes. A complicit Argentine naval officer confessed, “We did worse things than the Nazis.” The first head of the military’s ruling triumvirate, Jorge Videla, was dubbed “Hitler of the Pampa”.
Argentina’s DIrty War – How it Started
Scholars generally agree the dirty war began with the democratically elected government— two years prior to the military takeover. Argentina at the time faced a leftist insurgency and guerrilla movement that pursued a campaign of political assassinations, kidnappings, murders, sabotage, and bombings in the capital and elsewhere.
The Argentine establishment and foreign businesses consequently encouraged the military’s intervention to restore order. But once the junta seized total control of the government, it engaged in widespread, state-sponsored terrorism. Argentine courts later characterized its actions as crimes against humanity and genocide.
Kidnapped Children of Argentina’s Dirty War (Guerra Sucia)
Among those crimes— about 500 pregnant women detained during the dirty war were kept alive until they delivered and then murdered. Their babies were given to orphanages or to adoptive parents who backed the regime. The children grew up with no knowledge of their biological families or the circumstances of their birth.
Since 1977, a group called the “Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo” has fought to identify these stolen children and reunite them with their true families. In 2009, the Argentine Congress passed legislation to require DNA testing for any individuals suspected of being one of the kidnapped infants. To date, 132 of them have been found in South America, Europe, and the United States. Learn more about the search for these stolen children here.
Roberto and Patricia
Roberto Toranzo and Patricia Dina Palacín were 29 and 25 when they were kidnapped in Buenos Aires and taken to a clandestine detention center called El Banco. Patricia was three months pregnant at the time. The couple was never found, and their baby boy or girl— likely born in September or October 1978– would be 45 years old today. Both grandmothers are still searching for their grandchild.
Argentina’s Disappeared Ones (Desaparecidos)
Between 9,000 – 30,000 Argentine and occasionally foreign citizens simply disappeared during the dictatorship and are presumed murdered. (In 1984, the Argentine government officially acknowledged 8,961 forced disappearances.) Most of them were between the ages of 16 and 35. Efforts to find los desaparecidos, or “disappeared ones”— or at least document what happened to them— are spearheaded by a second human rights group, the “Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo”. The Mothers also fight to bring the remaining perpetrators to justice.
In 2021, the Argentine government partnered with the Mothers to distribute DNA tests to its consulates worldwide. The goal is to collect genetic data voluntarily from individuals of Argentine descent. That data will be used to identify more stolen babies and the anonymous remains recovered from mass graves dug during the dirty war.
Argentina’s Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
The Mothers, wearing white kerchiefs, still march every Thursday afternoon around the Plaza de Mayo adjacent to the Argentine president’s office. They’ve been doing it since 1977 to bring attention to the plight of the disappeared and the families still searching for them. The women’s signature white scarves are painted throughout the capital as reminders of the lives lost and the Mothers’ demands for justice and accountability.
Argentina’s Dirty War – The Reckoning
In 1983 the military dictatorship and its dirty war ended when Raul Alfonsín became the democratically elected president. His administration launched a national commission to address the mass disappearances. Its report opened the door to investigations of the junta’s human rights abuses and the prosecution of about 300 criminal cases.
A second wave of prosecutions began almost four decades later in 2006. Several hundred more people were convicted— 259 of them for crimes against humanity and genocide. But even as large swaths of the population continue to seek justice, there are groups who support amnesty for the accused.
The Link Between Stolpersteine and Argentina’s Dirty War
I understand now why the article about Emilie Klingenberger’s stolperstein in Prague triggered unusually strong reactions on the other side of the Atlantic. Some Argentine readers wanted similar memorials for los desaparecidos who, like victims of the Holocaust, lack proper graves and markers.
Others advocated for more education to ensure the younger generations fully understand— and remember— what happened. In Argentina, “never again” refers to the dictatorship.
After all, the Grandmothers and Mothers are growing older. So is the nation’s collective memory. I learned there’s currently a conservative movement in Argentina that questions official accounts of the junta and wants to quell further discussion about it. There is fear in some quarters that history will be erased along with the names and memories of the disappeared.
The tension was evident online, where two readers debated who was responsible for the dirty war and whether the dictatorship was needed to quell an insurgency. Forty years later, la guerra sucia still haunts Argentina.
So What’s My Point?
For one thing, I think it’s worth noting how events in one part of the world reverberate emotionally elsewhere, sometimes in unanticipated ways. And as a student of history, I think George Santayana was right— those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
But I started this website chiefly to help readers enrich their travels with under-the-radar experiences. So why the Argentine history lesson? Because uncovering the obscure, personal stories of ordinary people like Patricia Dina Palacín and Roberto Toranzo or Emilie Klingenberger or Hans-Eberhard Zahn or Josef Gabčík yields memorable, meaningful connections to— and insights about— the places we visit.
In other words, because seeing your destination through the eyes of the local population helps to set your trips apart from the ordinary.
Missed Opportunities
While in Buenos Aires, I missed my chance to visit the Plaza de Mayo on a Thursday and talk to one of the Mothers about her missing child. I didn’t know to visit ESMA, a museum and memorial site established at one of the former secret detention centers.
Maybe I could have asked my hosts (delicately) to describe from firsthand experience what life was like during the dictatorship. Or I might have volunteered to translate in support of the Grandmothers’ international campaign to find their stolen grandchildren.
But I didn’t know to do those things, and I really wish I had.
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