Argentina’s Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA)—a military school turned secret detention center—has been named a United Nations World Heritage site in an effort to preserve its grisly history.
Some 5,000 people disappeared behind its walls. Many were never seen again.
In 1976, a military group overthrew President Isabel Perón, beginning a period of dictatorship that stretched through to 1983. Under its leadership, widespread human rights abuses took place.
As many as 30,000 people are believed to have lost their lives, with many of their fates still unknown. They simply disappeared in military custody and were never heard from again.
Up to 340 detention centers cropped up across the country. ESMA, however, was one of the earliest, with prisoners transferred there in the first days of the coup. Only about 200 prisoners survived.
But ESMA’s inclusion on the World Heritage list underscores its importance at a time when some high-profile politicians in Argentina have been accused of denying the brutality of the military dictatorship.
“By actively preserving memory that the deniers want to conceal, we will make sure that this pain will never again be repeated,” President Fernández said. “In the face of these crimes against humanity, our solution is not revenge but justice, precisely because we know the horror represented by the disappearance of 30,000 human beings.”
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