Here in Rosario the same thing happened, as it did all around Argentina. Two of the visits we have made have been to the Museo de Memoria and the Centro Clandestino.
Museo de Memoria is a beautiful museum dedicated to the memory of those who have disappeared. A group of artists were gathered to utilize the building that was once the headquarters of the military brainpower in Rosario. Here is where they decided who would be kidnapped and when- or who would be killed. They made the decision that for this museum there would not be a focus on the torture and pain that took place, but instead on the memory of those who disappeared and their lives. I think it is one of the most interesting and beautifully arranged museums I have been to, but feel free to argue with me. One of the reasons I believe this is because, as the guide explained, every room was specifically chosen by the artists to display specific pieces of art. For example, the pillars engraved with names of those who disappeared was placed in the outdoor courtyard where everyone who passes the building can see it and be reminded. In the interior of the building, in a semi-circle rotunda, there are paintings of the white handkerchiefs that the mothers of the plaza de mayo wear and a tape player playing the hymn of the mothers because the mothers walk around in a circle in the Plaza de Mayo. In yet another room, that resembles a courtyard, there is a display of pictures of children who were born to those who disappeared. On one wall are pictures of children who were among the disappeared, but due to genetic testing in the last few years, or through other forms of identification, they have been reunited with grandparents (many of their parents are still missing). What is amazing is that many of these “children” are my age or slightly older. On the wall opposite are pictures, or in some cases no pictures, of children who are assumed missing- either children who were born while their parents were being detained, or children who died along with their parents, or children who still haven’t been located. The pieces are powerful and heart wrenching and I am still trying to take in this piece of Argentine history.
Our next visit was just as hard for me. We were greeted by a lady in her 50s, at the door of a locked building on the side of a governmental building. Behind these locked doors is the location of Rosario’s clandestine prison; the place where people were taken and tortured after being kidnapped from their homes during the night. She herself was taken here, but then quickly transferred to a legal prison in Buenos Aires for 3 years, and then she lived in exile in Spain for several years. She didn’t really feel right telling the story of the prison because it is not her story, but it was enough for all of us to be present with someone who was detained in any manner during this time in Argentine history.
She walked us through the different rooms, showing us where people were tortured with electric shock and where people were held together with no room to move. She showed us the old wooden floor where people were dropped to create horrific noises for the prisoners below to listen to. She showed us the part of the prison where you hoped you would end up because you were more likely to survive, and the place where most people died. It was awful to be in the location of such awful happenings, and to see that walls had been remade and floors overlaid with concrete in an attempt to confuse the former prisoners so that they couldn’t correctly identify the building or their captors after the “war” had ended. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to live through those times, and yet the large majority of people in Argentina did live through it and live with the consequences of a broken generation even today.
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