ESMA used to be an Argentine Navy school which doubled as a torture and detention center during Argentina’s last military dictatorship from 1976 through 1983. This time was known as the “dirty wars” and over these years an estimated 30,000 people were disappeared by the government. The people taking the others were far right-wing people associated with the government. They were taking, or “disappearing” as they were calling it here, left wing people associated with socialism, and torturing them to get information of more people who were associated with socialism. Eventually a majority of the people who were disappeared were killed.
Visiting ESMA you could feel the sadness and overall emotion associated with a cite where people were senselessly tortured and killed. Seeing the places where they were kept and how it was really in the middle of a giant city like Buenos Aires is shocking to say the least. Also the fact that everyone from the students to the officers at the naval school were forced to participate in the torturing of people makes it all the more real. On top of that other workers at the school must have felt gigantic dilemmas as they were seeing unfair treatment and torture of civilians like themselves at a government agency they work at. It’s hard for me to imagine a situation like this just because you would never really expect that it happened a little over thirty years ago in the same huge city that I am walking around today.