ESMA

I am so thankful that the Harvard programs here in Buenos Aires are so generous about including other Harvard students in their activities. Today I went on a group tour of ESMA with the SIP program. La Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada, or ESMA, was the site of many of the detentions and torture of civilians during the dictatorship in Argentina.

Our guide was careful to tell us that much has been changed in the buildings since the time of their active use as holding and torture centers (in the 1970s and early 1980s) – sometimes in anticipation of human rights investigations, sometimes just in the normal course of progress. But being in a building, however different, however barren, knowing the kind of activities that took place there 30 years ago is still a very powerful experience.

Even harder to see a place like this on such a nice day. Although my imaginings of being a prisoner looking out on such beautiful surroundings is nothing more than a hypothetical exercise since during that time period, the windows were covered in order to erase any distinction between night and day.

Photos were not allowed inside the buildings (and actually, I'm not sure about outside either, hence I didn't wait until the guy in the picture had passed by to get a better shot in case I would be stopped), but here is the outside of the main building we toured during our time there. The basement was used for torture and slave labor, the 3rd floor for holding prisoners, with officers lodged in between. How could you live and sleep in a place knowing that people were being electric shocked below you and held in inhuman conditions above you?

The holding area was called "Capucha" (hood), after the hoods that prisoners had to wear 24/7. They were heavy, causing pain; and they were never washed, leading to an intense odor. Prisoners were forced to lie motionless and silent on mats on the floor, only able to leave in the case of moving to the torture chambers or the work rooms. I believe the figure is that out of the approximately 5000 detained in this center, approximately 200 survived.

On a lighter note, many of us arrived late due to the charming fact that in Buenos Aires, many of the buses have several "versions" that trace slightly different routes, of which it appears to be impossible to search online or find out about except by asking a knowledgeable local or a bus driver. If you don't know that you are on one of these fun types, you can end up far from your destination. Hence I ended up taking a taxi for the last part of my journey, while others ended up coming 30 minutes to an hour late.