Initially, this was the conviction in Argentina. Then came fear. And after the fear, indifference. “Nothing happens to someone who stays out of politics/’
Such silence begins in the channels of communication. Certain political leaders, institutions, and priests attempt to denounce what is happening, but are unable to establish contact with the population. The silence begins with a strong odor. People sniff the suicides, but it eludes them. Then silence finds another ally: solitude. People fear suicides as they fear madmen. And the person who wants to fight senses his solitude and is frightened.
Whereupon the silence reverts to patriotism. Fear finds its great moral revelation in patriotism, with its indubitable capacity for justification, its climate of glory and sacrifice. Only abroad, where there is neither Night nor Fog, are revelations formulated. That, however, is the Anti-Argentine Campaign.
It’s best, therefore, to be a patriot and not remain solitary.
To stay out of politics and stay alive.
I leave the meeting at the Plaza Hotel filled with dreams of glory and combat. I accept the challenge, convinced that I hold many cards in my hand.
1. I send a journalist to London to spend a week at the Institute of Strategic Studies. I’m told that they’ve done several investigations on democratic methods of combating leftist terrorism. We collect material and publish a special supplement in La Opinion. I’m enthusiastic, and receive comments on the material from several military leaders. The British Embassy informs me that a number of military leaders have requested further information and want to consult the sources used by La Opinion. They send for some books. All the books concur, in varying degrees, that irrational, illegal repression compromises any future political victory and the formation of a democratic society. Illegal repression leaves the door open for a return of left-wing terrorism. Such repression cannot be maintained indefinitely; when it is relaxed, terrorism returns, armed with a baggage of martyrdom.
2. I meet with an ex-president of Argentina—several of our ex-presidents are alive. I propose that they sign a joint document opposing violence in any form, of the Right or Left, in favor of legal methods of repression. Such a proposal might work, he thinks, if, in advance, a co-signed editorial expressing this principle were to appear in all the newspapers. I tell him I’m prepared to do this, and anticipate that certain small newspapers will join me, though it’s unlikely that any other major paper will. But I’ll try. Both of us fail. A member of his family dies in the attempt. A former secretary disappears forever.
3. There’s a prestigious Catholic magazine that publishes analyses and commentaries of a positive, democratic nature and that upholds respect for the law and the legal process. The magazine comes out against certain repressive measures of the armed forces. I begin reproducing some of these articles in La Opinion to give them wider coverage. The editor of the magazine receives threats, and seems destined for transfer to a high position in the Vatican. The magazine continues, however, in its informative vein and makes no attempt to forbid my reproduction of its articles. I reprint another article from a Jesuit magazine. La Opinion is censured, and I’m informed that the author of the article, a priest, has been removed secretly from the country by the Jesuits out of fear for his life. I’ve a sense of being alone. I reproduce articles from small newspapers in the interior of the country. The papers are threatened and closed down. A bomb is thrown into the home of my editor on Catholic affairs. No one is killed.
4. I instruct political reporters and military columnists on La Opinion to broaden their contacts with leaders on both sides in order to locate any democratic leader who cares to comment or to write an article, any military official who foresees the national peril in the illegality that is encroaching on the judicial process. Hardly any individuals care to talk to us. We are quite alone. Some reporters resign.
I'm thrown to the ground in the cell. It’s hot. My eyes are blindfolded. The door opens and someone says that I’m to be moved. Two days have gone by without torture.
The doctor came to see me and removed the blindfold from my eyes. I asked him if he wasn’t worried about my seeing his face. He acts surprised. “I’m your friend. The one who takes care of you when they apply the machine. Have you had something to eat?”
“I have trouble eating. I’m drinking water. They gave me an apple.”
“You’re doing the right thing. Eat lightly. After all, Gandhi survived on much less. If you need something, call me.” “My gums hurt. They applied the machine to my mouth.” He examines my gums and advises me not to worry, I’m in perfect health. He tells me he’s proud of the way I withstood it all. Some people die on their torturers, without a decision having been made to kill them; this is regarded as a professional failure. He indicates that I was once a friend of his father’s, also a police doctor. His features do seem familiar. I mention his father’s name; this is indeed the son. He assures me that I’m not going to be killed. I tell him that I haven’t been tortured for two days, and he’s pleased.
Someone who’s sent to fetch me cracks a joke: “To the gas chamber.” The doctor gets angry. “We’re not anti-Semites.” I’m transferred to Chief Police Headquarters in the city of La Plata. It takes half an hour to arrive, and as we enter the city my blindfold is removed and I’m allowed to sit up. Until now, I have been stretched out on the floor of the car. I recognize this city where I was a university student many years ago. A typical student city, with wide, tree-lined streets. I often came to Police Headquarters for various transactions. Now I’m led through the Fire Department entrance into the basement. I keep walking, my hands tied behind me. There’s a corridor, and propped against one wall a high painter’s ladder. The blindfold is again placed over my eyes, and one of my hands is tied to the bottom step of the ladder. I can either sit or lie down.
I remain this way for a couple of days, given only water. Every once in a while, I’m allowed to go to the bathroom. I’m spoken to amiably. Without shouts, insults, jeers, or sarcasm. People here recognize me, recall my television appearances. I’m told that the newspapers are writing about me, and I’m assured that I’ll be all right.
My blindfold is removed—that is all. Different guards take turns. They alternate every six hours. I begin to recognize them. There’s one who gives me a kick whenever he passes, without saying a word. I question another guard as to why he does this. He asks me to be understanding: The lad’s a fine boy, but can’t stand Jews, and that feeling is stronger than anything. In compensation, the man brings me a cup of coffee.
The interrogation takes place in the Chief Inspector’s top-floor private dining room. Two people will question me; they’re having lunch, and I’m invited to share their meal.
William Skardon, for over twenty years, was the chief examiner of Britain’s internal security service, MI5. He interrogated the Russian atomic spy Klaus Fuchs, and obtained his confession. Skardon once reminisced on how an instructor had taught him the best method of interrogation: to repeat the same question many times, at different moments in the examination, as if it had never been asked before. The object is to verify how many changes the interrogated party introduces in his replies, then to point out to him the apparent contradictions, and keep insisting until the sought-after reply, or the one that is suspected to exist, is obtained.
That day, my interrogators’ method is different. They assure me that all they want to do is hold a political conversation. They have certain points, however, in their favor: I’ve been subjected to long days of torture, while blindfolded, and have signed many papers which they claim are statements I made, and have also been forced to put my fingerprints on these papers. They flourish the papers in front of me, but don’t allow me to read them. When an answer isn’t to their liking, I’m immediately asked to tell them about my life. They scrutinize their papers. When I forget something, or begin at the age of fifteen, they tell me to start earlier, for example, at the time of my arrival in Argentina at five, or when I entered the Macabi Org
anization at eight.
If they like one of my answers, they have me write it out, sign it, and imprint it with the thumb of my right hand.
What arouses most enthusiasm are my theories on the need to combat both rightist and leftist terrorism. They anticipate using these ideas as the basis of their accusatory proceedings against me because “to identify legal forces with subversion is to be a subversive.” I talk briefly about fascism of the Right and of the Left. They get furious, but don’t strike me. It’s a political conversation. How can I offend fascism by speaking of it in the same breath as the Left?
During this political conversation, which lasts for hours, perhaps fifteen or twenty, all the elements of my luncheon dialogue with the officer at the Plaza Hotel are repeated to some extent. But now, the exposition of my ideas is more a confession than an expression of a political proposal. My invocation of legality is distorted by the interrogators into a tactic designed to weaken the effectiveness of the security forces. My search for democratic allies amongst the political and military ranks is converted into a clandestine ploy to organize an instrument of opposition against the security forces. The reproduction of articles from other publications is converted into a satanic provocation intended to force the government to close down numerous publications, thereby confronting it with different sectors. Accepting the death penalty as the outcome of a trial is tantamount to presenting the armed forces as murderers.
I reiterate my ideas and convictions. And they’re genuinely satisfied, for it provides the proof the security forces sought regarding the subversive nature of my journalistic activity. They ask if I’d like to have a bath, and suggest I take advantage of an opportunity I may not have again for some time. I hesitate slightly because of my great fatigue. I don’t realize, they say, how bad I smell. Indeed, I haven’t washed for almost a month. I accept the bath, with a guard posted at the door. In the mirror, I see how thin I am. I must have lost between twenty and twenty-five kilos, but there are no signs of torture evident on my body. The scent of soap and water . . . I discover them perhaps for the first time. I’m overwhelmed by a forgotten sensation, and am frightened, for until now I’d avoided memories as much as possible.
The examiner returns and asks about our persistent reporting on Russian dissidents. I reply that we began printing all the news we could get on the subject several years ago, and even engaged a Russian translator so that poems written by dissidents would at least have a direct rendition rather than one taken from the French or English. He tells me that I’ve failed to understand his question. He wants to know why we did it. I make one more effort to explain the ideology of La Opinion, the battle against leftist and rightist extremism, but he interrupts me. He’s convinced that dissemination of dissident activity has as its only object the glorification of dissidence as a principle, and that transmission of that glorification to Argentine youth meant providing them with the ideological components of protest against the army.
He turns off the water faucet. I’m still covered with soap.
A strategy for helping that mother occurs to me. I realize that nothing can be printed in the newspaper, for it would be counterproductive; nor can I phone the garrison where the mother believes her children are being held, for then they’d be killed. What I can do, however, is to send a reporter to the headquarters of one of the three branches of the armed forces. Obviously, not the branch where the mother thinks they are held. And what is the point of this tactic?
Well, all that the reporter need do is to mention that an officer from the branch actually holding the children had made a remark to him indicating that both children were being incarcerated at the headquarters presently being visited. And that he’d heard this same remark from various political leaders. Competition between the three armed forces is an old Argentine tradition, as are suspicion and intrigue.
At the base where the reporter drops this item of information, they are all worried about the image of their branch. They order their own intelligence service to inquire into the whereabouts of the children. The children are located; though the boy will never reappear, the girl is saved. It’s been proved that the branch in question had no involvement in the kidnapping.
I recall some of the infinite varied miracles that saved lives during World War II. The incredible contrivances of underground caves, closets concealed in back of other closets, wells at the bottom of other wells, forged documents, Gentiles honored today in Jerusalem for having saved Jews by passing them off as Christians and as their own children, Jews hidden in convents. But on reading the statistics of the Nazi occupation in Europe, the numbers overwhelm individual accounts; they far exceed them.
Yes, it’s true that one of the woman’s children was saved. But it was impossible on a daily basis to invent tactics that worked.
In Argentina, too, the statistics of the year 1976 far exceed the miracles.
January 26, 1980. The Economist, volume 274, number 7117, devotes a special section to Argentina—its political, social, and economic aspects. The journalist Robert Harvey writes:
The use of official terrorism to counter ordinary terrorism made Argentina a more dangerous place than Chile after its coup because the rules of the game, for the government’s critics, were so ill-defined. A journalist, for example, might be given a wink by a minister to go ahead and publish an article criticizing an aspect of government policy. But he would not know whether a security service belonging to the army, or to the air force, or to the navy, or to the local military governor, or to the provincial governor, or independent of any of these, would or would not take umbrage. And even a top minister might be unable to help him if he was whisked off by a group of unknown men one night.
6
They order me to turn my back to the door. They blindfold my eyes. I’m “boarded up,” as they say in police jargon—a “board” placed over my eyes. They take me from the cell. I walk a long stretch, shoved from behind and guided by someone who, every once in a while, grabs me by the shoulders and sets me in the direction I’m to go in. There are many twists and turns. Long afterwards, while under house arrest, I was told by a policeman that the span I covered was probably quite short and that I was being made to circle round and round the same spot.
I hear the sound of voices and have the impression of being in a large room. I assume that I’m going to be made to undress for a torture session. But they sit me down, clothed, and tie my arms behind me. The application of electric shocks begins, penetrating my clothing to the skin. It’s extremely painful, but not as bad as when I’m laid down, naked, and doused with water. The sensation of the shocks on my head makes me jump in my seat and moan.
No questions are asked. Merely a barrage of insults, which increase in intensity as the minutes pass. Suddenly, a hysterical voice begins shouting a single word: “Jew... Jew... Jew!” The others join in and form a chorus while clapping their hands, as we did as children when the Tom Mix film came on the screen at the-movies. We’d clap our hands and shout: “Picture . . . picture . . . picture!”
Now they’re really amused, and burst into laughter. Someone tries a variation while still clapping hands: “Clipped prick . . . clipped prick.” Whereupon they begin alternating while clapping their hands: “Jew . . . Clipped prick . . . Jew . . . Clipped prick. . . .’’It seems they’re no longer angry, merely having a good time.
I keep bouncing in the chair and moaning as the electric shocks penetrate my clothes. During one of these tremors, I fall to the ground, dragging the chair. They get angry, like children whose game has been interrupted, and again start insulting me. The hysterical voice rises above the others: “Jew . . . Jew. . . .”
I ask my mother why they hate us so. I’m ten years old. We live in one of the poor sections of Buenos Aires, in one room, my parents, my brother, and I. There are two beds, a table, and a closet. It’s a large building, and my mother is worried because we’re the only Jews. She keeps arguing about it with my father, but renting a room in the Jewish secti
on—“the city,” as my father calls it—is much more expensive. My mother believes that it’s dangerous not to have Jewish friends.
We’re in the courtyard, where each dwelling is allotted a place for its stove. The stoves are a kind of outdoor charcoal grill with room for two pots. When it rains, cooking is done inside the room on a “primus,” a primitive little stove. I’ve just returned from the coal yard and place some charcoal on sheets of paper. My mother ignites the paper, for a child ought not to play with fire; but I’m put in charge of getting the coal to catch, assisted by a notebook I use to ventilate it.
There’s much excitement in the building, for this is the weekend when Carnival festivities begin. I ask my mother if I can go in costume. We have no money to buy a costume, and I know it, but she’s a good dressmaker. All the clothes my brother and I wear—pants, shirts, underwear—are sewn by my mother. The only things purchased for us are socks; shoes are generally a gift from some wealthy cousins. My mother could make me a clown’s outfit out of white fabric. I could use an old sheet, the kind she lays over the table when ironing. The sheet could also serve as a pirate’s cape, in which case I’d paint my face with a burnt cork.
The year is 1933, five years after our arrival from Russia. My mother says we’re newcomers in Argentina, “greenhorns,” but I don’t feel like a newcomer. She talks to me in Yiddish, and I teach her Spanish. She learns, but goes on talking to me in Yiddish and calls me “Yankele.” She shames me everywhere. But the Spanish translation also makes people smile: “Jacobo” is very Jewish. A relative had advised her when we entered the country to register me under the name of Alejandro, but my father was opposed to it.
I’m not to have a costume for Carnival, nor will I be allowed to play and celebrate in the street, for Carnival, according to my mother, is an anti-Semitic holiday. People disguise themselves in order to show that the Jews have no country, that they’ve been dispersed throughout the nations and dress in the clothing of other nationalities. But, says my mother, if I want to dress up in a costume, a nice holiday to do so and have a good time like honorable folk is Purim. “And what costume will I wear at Purim?”
Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number Page 6