RIGHTS:
Argentina’s Jewish
‘Desaparecidos’
By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, (IPS)
- The leaders of
Argentina’s Jewish
community -- the largest
in Latin America --
published in book form a
report on Jewish victims
of forced disappearance
in the 1976-1983
dictatorship, who faced
especial brutality
because of their ethnic
origin.
The "Report on the
situation of the Jewish
detainees-disappeared
during the genocide
perpetrated in
Argentina" was for the
first time published in
print in Argentina to
make it widely available
to the public, by the
Delegation of Argentine
Jewish Associations’ (DAIA)
Social Studies Centre (CES),
with the backing of the
government Human Rights
Secretariat.
"The book forms part of
DAIA’s commitment to the
families of the
victims," CES director
Marisa Braylán told IPS.
She was alluding to
complaints by families
of victims, who have
accused DAIA of keeping
a low profile during the
de facto regime despite
the disappearance of
members of the
community.
"The families were
asking for help, and the
current leadership
assumed the
responsibility of
reviewing past actions
and acknowledging that
several errors had been
made," said Aldo Donzis,
president of DAIA.
The report does not
specifically refer to
these "errors," but
reflects the commitment
"to recognise omissions
and mistakes," said
Braylán.
Human Rights Secretary
Eduardo Luis Duhalde
remarked at the
presentation of the book
Wednesday that
"confronting the
dictatorship at that
time required a heroic
stance, and that is not
something that can be
asked of all citizens
alike."
Two aspects stand out in
the report. One is that
Jewish people formed a
disproportionately large
part of the
dictatorship’s victims
of forced disappearance.
The other is that
although "they did not
suffer specifically
anti-Semitic
persecution, Jewish
victims suffered
especially brutal
treatment, and Nazi
symbols were used" by
the torturers, said
Duhalde.
The introduction to the
book explains that DAIA
emerged in 1935 to
confront the threat of
the Nazi regime in
Germany and the
activities of its agents
and supporters in
Argentina.
It then goes on to
describe the challenges
and anti-Semitic
harassment and attacks
suffered by members of
the Jewish community in
Argentina prior to the
March 1976 coup d’etat
that ushered in the
dictatorship.
The two most serious
attacks suffered by the
Jewish community in
Argentina actually
occurred after the
return to democracy: a
1992 bomb blast that
killed 29 people in and
around the Israeli
Embassy in Buenos Aires,
and the 1994 bombing of
the AMIA Jewish
community centre in the
capital, in which 86
people were killed. But
the report does not
dwell on either
incident.
DAIA notes that the
military regime’s
persecution of leftists,
trade unionists and
others deemed
"subversive" included
abductions, torture,
forced disappearance and
the theft of the babies
and young children of
political prisoners,
while it remarks that
the Jewish victims
received treatment that
was even more cruel and
brutal than other
prisoners.
The report is based on
the testimonies of a
number of people, some
of which were collected
by the National
Commission on the
Disappearance of Persons
(CONADEP), created in
1984 by then president
Raúl Alfonsín. Other
statements were taken
from court records, in
Argentina and abroad, or
from the personal
accounts of survivors
gathered by local or
international human
rights groups.
Many survivors said
there were Nazi symbols,
like the swastika or
pictures of Adolf
Hitler, on the walls in
the clandestine
detention centres were
they were held, and that
they were subjected to
anti-Semitic insults
during the torture
sessions. In addition,
Hitler’s speeches were
often played over
loudspeakers, during
torture sessions or at
night.
The book includes a
provisional list of
Jewish victims of forced
disappearance, which was
first presented in court
in Spain in the late
1990s. It also provides
a list of names drawn up
by the Barcelona-based
Commission of Solidarity
with the Families of the
Detained and Disappeared
in Argentina.
The book says that in
the 1970s there were
between 230,000 and
290,000 Jewish people in
Argentina, representing
between 0.8 and 1.2
percent of the
population at the time,
while they made up an
estimated five to 12
percent of the
"disappeared".
CONADEP’s 1984 report "Nunca
Mas" (Never Again)
documented 8,956 cases
of forced disappearance,
including 1,117 members
of the Jewish community
-- a proportion of 12.4
percent. And if the
outright killings
documented by CONADEP
are taken into account
as well, the proportion
climbs to more than 15
percent.
The book published by
DAIA lists 1,300 Jewish
victims of forced
disappearance, but the
Association said it
would leave the registry
open because it presumes
there were more.
(Human rights groups put
the total number of
"disappeared" at around
30,000.)
DAIA points out that,
just as in the Nazi
concentration camps,
political prisoners in
Argentina were assigned
numbers, stripped of
their names and
humiliated, and that
after they were killed,
their bodies were
hidden. Jewish political
prisoners were also
subjected to "added
suffering," it says.
In his testimony to
CONADEP, survivor Daniel
Fernández said Jews were
subjected to an
especially cruel and
sadistic form of
torture: "the ‘rectoscope’,
which consisted of
inserting a tube into
the victim's anus, or
into a woman's vagina,
then letting a rat into
the tube. The rodent
would try to get out by
gnawing at the victim's
internal organs."
A man who testified
anonymously before
CONADEP said the
torturers laughed at
Jewish prisoners and
painted swastikas on
their bodies. Cristina
Navarro, another
survivor, said one guard
took special pleasure in
beating detainees with
Jewish last names.
DAIA also quotes
journalist and writer
Jacobo Timerman, who
died in 1999. In his
book "Prisoner without a
Name, Cell without a
Number", the former
newspaper publisher said
Jewish detainees were
forced to get down on
all fours and bark like
a dog.
"It is clear, then, that
this was not a
particular ‘excess’
committed by some
repressors, but rather
an institutionalised
conception and practice
within the security
forces in power during
those years," says the
report.
Other witnesses said
torturers questioned
detainees in detail
about Jewish
organisations and drew
up maps of synagogues
and sports clubs, as
well as lists of names.
Some of them even knew
words in Hebrew or
Yiddish, and were "truly
obsessed" with Zionism
and Israel, said
Timerman.
Writer Nora Strejilevich
said one of her
interrogators "assured
me that the ‘problem of
subversion’ was the one
with which they were
most concerned, but that
the ‘Jewish problem’
followed it in order of
importance and that they
were filing
information."
Braylán said the
documents and
testimonies that served
as the basis for the
DAIA report will form
part of the archives in
the "Museum of Memory"
that is being created in
the Navy School of
Mechanics, which was the
dictatorship’s most
notorious torture centre
and has been handed over
to human rights groups.
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