ESMA mega-case

At 12:30 a.m., they took María Ester. Several family members were granted interviews with members of the Armed Forces and they filed a lawsuit against Jorge Rafael Videla, with the representation of Emilio Mignone in 1977. They had to go into exile for two years.

At 5 a.m., they took Mónica María Candelaria Mignone. She was at her family home with her father, Emilio, her mother, Angélica, her sister Mercedes, her brother Javier and two cousins. The operation lasted about 40 minutes.

At first, the family thought that the Task Group was looking for Emilio, who had been president of the University of Luján and in his capacity as a lawyer, had interceded on behalf of political prisoners. But they asked for Mónica.

The repressors carried “long machine guns [and were wearing] green fatigues and lace-up military boots,” Mercedes recalled. In the bathroom, Mónica told Mercedes to warn Marta and César. “We looked at each other, it was a deep look of panic that stays with you for the rest of your life,” Mercedes said.

Javier saw how they drove off in two Falcon cars, taking Mónica with them. Emilio went down to follow them with his car but the air had been let out of his tires. Javier and his mother, Angélica, immediately went to warn María Marta Vásquez and César Lugones about Mónica’s abduction, but when they arrived they found the doors of the apartment building open. They had already been taken away.

María Marta, 23, was an educational psychologist and she was pregnant. César, 26, was a veterinarian. Marta Ocampo de Vásquez, María Marta’s mother and founder of Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, met with naval officer Adolfo Scilingo on two occasions. He froze when she showed him María Marta’s photograph. Scilingo told her that he saw her daughter with a late-term pregnancy at ESMA. “Do I have a grandchild? Should I be looking for my grandchild or not?” Marta Vásquez asked in court.

Beatriz, 22, was a social worker and a registered nurse. Horacio, 23, was studying geology and worked as a taxi driver. They were kidnapped that night. Earlier Mónica Quinteiro was abducted when she was leaving her job at the “Sociedad Militar Seguro de Vida.”

A few days later, other kidnappings were carried out. On May 23, 1976, the priests Francisco Jalics and Orlando Yorio were kidnapped at the site where the Jesuit Community worked in the Rivadavia neighborhood. They were later released. They were able to reveal that the Task Group that operated at the ESMA had intervened. Catechism teachers Silvia Guiard, María Elena Funes, Beatriz Teves and Olga Villar were also kidnapped in this operation.

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After the kidnappings, the first meetings were held in Emilio and Angélica Mignone’s apartment. The relatives of the disappeared detainees shared their experiences of searching for their loved ones. The Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) began to take shape in that apartment. Mercedes Mignone recalled that the date coincided, more or less, with the arrival of the OAS in Argentina in 1979 and with the presentation of Mónica’s case before the IACHR. CELS founders were Augusto Conte, José Westerkamp, Boris Pasik, Alfredo Galletti, Carmen Aguiar de Lapacó, Emilio and Angélica (“Chela”) Sosa de Mignone and Noemí Labrune – all of them relatives of disappeared persons.

The Mignones were under surveillance. On the door of the building where they lived, the following graffiti appeared: “Emilio Mignone. We provide advice to terrorists. ”

*Image: Mignone Archive.

After two months in captivity, she was finally allowed to shower in a bathroom without shower curtains and always within the line of sight of a guard. At ESMA, they did a blood test to confirm her pregnancy. Then they put her in a room with a bed next to “Capucha.” She spent her days there, at night they chained her to 25-kilo cannon ball.

An infirmary was operated in the ESMA basement, where the delivery was going to be done but due to a complication she was transferred to the Naval Hospital. She gave birth to a son on March 1, 1977. Marta was immediately returned to the clandestine detention center while her son remained at the hospital.

Marta was treated for an infection at ESMA by Jorge Luis Magnacco, one of the accused in this case. He told her she need to return to the hospital so the placenta could be removed. Her newborn son had already been returned to the ESMA. She spent three months with the child, until the Task Group took the baby to live with his grandmother.

Throughout 1977 and part of 1978, she was forced to draft news clippings along with Lisandro Cubas. In May 1978, Marta was taken against her will to work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with Graciela García. Her boss, Captain Perez Froio, knew they were kidnapped. In that place, Marta also saw Montes, Whamond, Yon and Rolón. During the day, they worked in the ministry and at night they were taken back to the ESMA to sleep.

In August 1978, they took her to work at “Chroma SA,” a production company that filmed commercials and videos, run by the Task Group. Other kidnapped persons were also working there. On a daily basis, “Dante” González Menotti, Jorge Acosta and Jorge Carlos Rádice—who appeared as the owner with the name Juan Héctor Ríos—came by the production company. Two of Jacinto Chamorro’s sons, Rafael Ayersa and Eduardo Massera (son), also worked at the company as legal counsel.

In August and September 1978, she was able to leave temporarily, sleeping outside the ESMA. But at the end of 1979, she was returned to the clandestine center. She told the court why: ” three kidnapping victims held a press conference in Paris: Martí, Osatinsky and Pirles denouncing what was happening at the ESMA. [Abdala] told us what had happened, saying it could not happen again. That he was not going to forgive them for what had happened. That we would remain kidnapped in the ESMA and that we should think very hard before doing something like what they had done.”

At Chroma, she did slave labor until December 1983 or early 1984.

Acosta was obsessed with one of her sisters, Marta, who in the end was also taken to the ESMA. He also threatened her parents and he forced them to move from their home. At the trial, Graciela told the court: “Acosta told my older sister, Marta, that she was going to have to do several things if she wanted to keep the girls alive. He later called her and told her she had to go to a notary public, where they told her she had to sign (some papers for the fake companies that the Task Group set up).”

Starting in 1977, Graciela, like Marta Álvarez, was forced to work to benefit her captors. They took her from the ESMA to work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for press secretary Pérez Froio and Foreign Affairs Minister Oscar Montes. At the end of 1978 and during 1979, she worked against her will in an office in Retiro, along with Alfredo Buzzalino.

In 1979, they took her, along with Marta Bazán and Miriam Lewin, to work at the Ministry of Social Welfare. At the time, “Yon” and Lanzón used the telephone to control her; a situation that lasted until the return of democracy. In 1980, Jorge Acosta called and visited her. During the democracy, he also went to her sister’s office in Tribunales.

It was very difficult for Graciela to testify about what happened at the ESMA; she wasn’t able to do so until 2005. She tried to testify before the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (Conadep), but the terror she felt prevented her from doing so.

Alfredo Astiz, accompanied by a driver, led the operation of Ariel’s kidnapping. As he was leaving his friend’s home, they attacked him and started firing. Ariel responded. He was dead upon arrival at the ESMA.

Ariel’s family did everything in their power to determine his whereabouts: they presented habeas corpus; they testified before the Conadep; they met with church authorities; they filed complaints before human rights organizations; they presented complaints before the Argentine Consulate; and they went before the Italian Consulate in Sao Paolo. They also reached out to the office of the Italian presidency, the religious leader Pablo Evaristo Arns in Sao Paolo and international organizations like OAS and the UN. Leon Ferrari, Ariel’s father, traveled to Stockholm in 1978 to see the secretary of Amnesty International.

In the complaints filed by Ariel’s family, they also included the disappearance of Ariel’s girlfriend Liliana, who had also been kidnapped after she returned to Buenos Aires to look for him.

León Ferrari tirelessly worked to find his son’s body from 1983 onwards. He was also a plaintiff in case No. 761 – “Events in the realm of the School of Naval Mechanics, File on the Search for Ferrari, Ariel Adrián” and in case No. 13.151. Both cases were processed by the National Appeals Chamber for Criminal and Correctional Matters of the Federal Capital. Despite all his efforts, León died in 2013 without finding Ariel’s remains.

As a teenager, Sergio was politically active in the organization of high school students Unión de Estudiantes Secundarios (UES) , later he joined the Peronist University Youth Organization (JUP); at the time of his kidnapping, he was with the Montoneros. Sergio, despite his family’s objections and the fact he could be exempted, he signed up for the mandatory military service. He did it “to help the boys they bring to the barracks to think; many of them have not completed primary school. The military brainwashes them and turns them into killing machines.”

A report on Sergio requested by the Judge of Military Arraignment Court No.3 drafted by the armed forces in 1985 indicated that he deserted on July 19, 1976. Sergio Tarnopolsky was not a deserter; he was kidnapped by the Navy. He remains a disappeared person to this day.

Alejandro López, also a conscript, was kidnapped the same day. According to his own account, he found out that Sergio was accused of placing a bomb in the officers’ quarters and that, in retaliation, he and all his family were kidnapped. He overheard some non-commissioned officers who said they had tested bullet-proof vests on his body; they boasted of the torture they subjected him to; and that they mocked the Jewish heritage of the Tarnopolsky family.

Sergio’s brother Daniel later discovered that a bomb was found and the six conscripts with access to the site were kidnapped. Sergio incriminated himself so they would release his fellow conscripts.

In the afternoon of July 14, 1976, a group of soldiers came by the building where Sergio’s family lived. They told the doorman that there would be an operation that night and if the Tarnopolsky family was not home, they would take him away.

Sergio’s wife Laura Del Duca, 21, was studying literature. She met Sergio at the university. They were 20 years old when they got married. On July 15, 1976 at 5 a.m., armed civilian men came asking for her. They put hoods over the heads of her mother and grandmother. They took her to the ESMA. She remains disappeared to this day.

Sometime later, Ana del Duca told Daniel Tarnopolsky that Astiz had come with Sergio and Laura many times to the house. Once again, Astiz appears as an infiltrated member of a political organization.

The same day that Laura was kidnapped, an operation was carried out in the Tarnopolsky’s home. The ESMA squad kidnapped Sergio’s parents: Hugo Tarnopolsky and Blanca Edith Edelberg de Tarnopolsky.

Hugo, 50, was a chemist, and Blanca, 48, was a clinical psychologist. They used explosives to blow open the apartment door. During the kidnapping, they stole personal items and a car.

Hours later, the Task Group went to the home of Rosa Daneman de Edelberg, Sergio’s grandmother, where they asked for Bettina Tarnopolsky, 15. They locked her in the patio area from where she could hear Bettina’s screams.

Hugo, Blanca and Bettina were all taken to the ESMA.

According to Daniel Tarnopolsky, Marta Álvarez told him that his family was held at the ESMA for about 15 days and that around July 28 or 29, 1976, they were “blown away.”

Her kidnapping is tied to the persecution carried out by the ESMA task group against an important sector of the Montoneros: journalist union activists. They included Hernán Daniel Fernández, Rita Irene Mignaco, Javier Antonio Otero, Marta Álvarez, Adolfo Kilman, Alfredo Juan Manuel Buzzalino, Alberto Luis Castro, Carlos Enrique Castro, Juan Carlos Gualdoni Mazón, Pedro Bernardo Oviedo Domínguez and Carlos Alberto Pérez Jaquet. They were all kidnapped between June 25 and 30, 1976 and they were all taken to the ESMA.

Vera argued that: “[Franca’s] abduction and final destination are probably related to that period but certainly, above all, from her days as a student. They probably saw her as a potential leader within that militant youth, a target of the repression of state terrorism. She, who was opposed to fanaticism and violence, was chosen as a victim because she acted out of a sense of solidarity and for dreaming that a better world was possible.”

Jorge Jarach testified before the Conadep that Franca communicated with them on July 11, 1976. In a letter to the Conadep, Jorge and Vera wrote that on May 15, 1983, Liliana Gardella said she had transcribed the interrogations of Franca conducted by the Task Group and that her case was linked to that of María Adelaida Viñas and that of a young man with the last name Sackman. Liliana also indicated that the transcript ended with the acronym D.F. (Spanish for “final disposition”).

In case No. 1270, the evidence presented on Brodsky’s case resulted in the conviction of Adolfo Miguel Donda, as criminally co-responsible for the crime of illegal deprivation of liberty, triply aggravated by his status as a public official and for having committed this crime with violence and for its lasting more than one month, as well as for the crime of imposition of torture, aggravated by the victim’s status as someone politically persecuted. In this trial, new responsible parties will be identified.

Fernando was one of the people who transferred to an island called El Silencio during the visit of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 1979. Survivors spoke of the terrible conditions they were subjected to there. Upon returning from the island, Fernando was returned to the Capucha sector at ESMA. He disappeared along with the rest of the Villaflor Group in March 1980.

Fernando’s parents reported that they received several phone calls from their son while he was in captivity. The last one was on January 21, 1980. Fernando explained to his parents that he would not be able to call for a long time and that they should pretend that he’d gone traveling.

That day, Pablo had received a call at his parents’ house from José Hazan. Pablo was friends with José Hazan and Fernando Brodsky from high school. All three were victims of the ESMA Task Group. José had already been kidnapped when he made that call.

Bettina Ehrenhaus said she was forced to watch them torture Pablo. She was able to recognize a photo taken by Víctor Basterra during his captivity: “Pablo was wearing the pullover I had given him for his birthday.” She also recognized Fernando Brodsky and Juan Carlos Chiaravalle in the photos in the file Basterra showed at the hearing. During her captivity at the ESMA, Bettina recognized José Hazan’s voice.

On August 22, 1979, 17 days after his abduction, Pablo communicated with his parents for the first time and told them that he did not know where he was being held. He asked them not to worry and that he was in good health. He asked his parents not to file a police report because his captors told him that it would only bring him more harm. After that initial call, there were more periodic calls, all with them same tone and promise: a possible family visit and a future release.

In mid-February 1980, Pablo once again called his family. He told them that he was going to have to temporarily suspend the calls and that he hoped to resume them in the future. He was part of a “transfer” that took place in March 1980.

Elisa Tokar, a survivor, identified Alcira like a girl from Jujuy, nicknamed “La Biónica” (Spanish for the bionic girl). She was brutally tortured and wore a white hood in “Capuchita.” Graciela Daleo spoke of the reason that she was given that nickname: “despite being tortured and always wearing a hood, she had a very special energy.”

Lila Pastoriza recalled that despite the brutal torture Alcira was subjected to “she used anything at hand to make sculptures—brick dust, bread crumbs—and she wrote poems. She was very young. I later spoke with her mother, who came to visit me in Mexico and I told her that [Alcira] was fine in spite of everything. I knew that she was transferred in February 1978 when the journalist came and they removed everything.” Alcira was known for her handcrafts inside the ESMA.

It is believed that she was transferred in February 1978, when she was executed in a death flight.

Alcira’s disappearance caused great pain in the family. Her mother tried to find her daughter’s whereabouts from Venezuela and she never abandoned that search. Estela, her sister, testified “… We were very close as a family. We could not allow ourselves the loss of one of our family members. My father and my mother built a family on a foundation so solid that … it was a home, a foundation that could not be broken unless someone did what they did to my sister. It was the worst pain we have ever felt. My children and my grandchildren all know that Alcira is present.”