Speaker 1: Hello, Avenger listeners, It's Steve Fishman and I'm really glad
Speaker 1: you've tuned in. I hope you love this show as
Speaker 1: much as we do. A quick word on an upcoming
Speaker 1: bonus episode. We're doing a bonus with Miriam, the real Miriam.
Speaker 1: We'll be asking her questions, your questions and getting answers.
Speaker 1: She'll update us on what's going on in her world
Speaker 1: and a lot has Please email your questions or thoughts
Speaker 1: or comments too. Info at Orbitmedia dot fm. Oh and
Speaker 1: Fisher Stevens can answer your questions too. He's our co
Speaker 1: founder and resident Oscar winner. He's an actor you saw
Speaker 1: him in Succession and director of actors like al Pacino
Speaker 1: and Justin Timberlake. For Avenger, he directed Alexis Bledel, who
Speaker 1: voices Miriam. If we're lucky, Alexis who was the star
Speaker 1: of Gilmore Girls and Handmaid's Tale and is the daughter
Speaker 1: of an Argentine. We'll chip in answers to so let
Speaker 1: us know your thoughts and questions, hopes and prayers. Info
Speaker 1: at Orbitmedia dot FM. Thanks, you're about to listen to
Speaker 1: the second episode of Avenger. This is our new true
Speaker 1: crime series. In season three of the burden. One thing
Speaker 1: I want to mention this podcast took us a year
Speaker 1: to get right. There's a ton of reporting behind every
Speaker 1: podcast we do. In today's episode, which is called the Investigation,
Speaker 1: an Italian journalist shows up at Miriam's doorstep and pulls
Speaker 1: her into the investigation of her life in all senses
Speaker 1: of that phrase. A quick word about subscriptions. If you
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Speaker 2: Thanks. Before we begin, please note that for this story
Speaker 2: we interviewed Medium and everyone else for dozens of hours
Speaker 2: in Spanish. We hired actors to voice their words in English. Also,
Speaker 2: this episode contains sensitive content and it's intended for mature audiences.
Speaker 2: Medium visits Giancadlo's apartment for the first time. It's two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven. They had met several days earlier at
Speaker 2: a cafe. This time he greets her with his very
Speaker 2: own freshly brewed coffee.
Speaker 3: His apartment was very small, a minuscule kitchen, a single
Speaker 3: bathroom and just two rooms, a tiny living room and
Speaker 3: a bedroom with a working desk next to his bed.
Speaker 2: But Jiancarlo's apartment did have one nice perk and.
Speaker 3: I must window with a gorgeous view of the city.
Speaker 3: Sunsets were just stunning. We sat in his living room.
Speaker 3: He had these old armchairs from the sixties, not very comfortable,
Speaker 3: so kind of perfect. You didn't get too relaxed.
Speaker 4: Medium was recommended to me by a fellow journalist. She
Speaker 4: had the insider knowledge of a survivor, so I wanted
Speaker 4: to know more about her.
Speaker 2: And that's because Giancadlo really needs medium. When he first
Speaker 2: arrived in Argentina, he came out of boredom looking for adventure.
Speaker 4: I always say that I became a photographer because it
Speaker 4: was the perfect excuse to go out and do something.
Speaker 2: He soon found he had some relatives there and his
Speaker 2: connection deepened.
Speaker 4: Then I saw a movie about the dictatorship. It hit
Speaker 4: me hard, the darkness and what he said about us
Speaker 4: as human beings.
Speaker 2: He decided to stay and he wanted to focus on
Speaker 2: the hidden detention centers, photographing them, but he also knew
Speaker 2: he needed help. That's how he found medium. Gian Cadlo
Speaker 2: needs her to commit to an investigation. She will give
Speaker 2: his work legitimacy and authenticity. And she's a well known
Speaker 2: investigative reporter with access to more people in places than
Speaker 2: any Italian photographer could ever hope for.
Speaker 4: Medium was just perfect for me. I wanted this to work,
Speaker 4: so all these questions, I thought of them like releasing
Speaker 4: a mosquito right next to her here, just to see
Speaker 4: how she would react.
Speaker 2: He was prodding her, poking her, and knowing her to
Speaker 2: get a reaction.
Speaker 3: Gian Carlo said that if we were going to work together,
Speaker 3: we had to know each other better. He was already
Speaker 3: assuming that me showing up was me agreeing to work
Speaker 3: with him. He pretended to care, telling me I didn't
Speaker 3: have to answer his questions if I didn't want to,
Speaker 3: But really he didn't care if they made me uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: This is also a tactic on Jihan Cardlo's part.
Speaker 4: I treated her like a person, not as a survivor,
Speaker 4: with respect, but not too much.
Speaker 2: Really. Giancarlo is as too. He's nice when he needs
Speaker 2: to be, but he's after something. He needs to charm
Speaker 2: her into joining the investigation and into trusting him with
Speaker 2: the secrets of her past.
Speaker 3: He wanted to know about my childhood, also about my anarchism,
Speaker 3: my kidnapping, and how I had survived. It was question
Speaker 3: after question. Honestly, I told him more about me than
Speaker 3: he did about himself, and he just seemed to share
Speaker 3: what was convenient for him.
Speaker 4: I tell her that I grew up near an airport,
Speaker 4: how my father used to be friends with a pilot,
Speaker 4: so every Sunday it would take me to go to
Speaker 4: look at airplanes. I remember being amazed, completely hypnotized by
Speaker 4: the site.
Speaker 2: He also pose to her a way to look at
Speaker 2: the past.
Speaker 4: Growing up in Rome, having access to places like the coliseum,
Speaker 4: It's always been so easy for me to give a
Speaker 4: soul to things and places. Rok will live longer than me,
Speaker 4: it will stay, I will die, So I look at
Speaker 4: objects and places like their witnesses.
Speaker 2: Jihangadlo tells her he wants to document Argentina's dictatorship through photographs,
Speaker 2: a book that will show the victims, their faces, their
Speaker 2: truths for all the world to see. And also he
Speaker 2: wants to show the tools used to disappear people, like
Speaker 2: the planes that flew the death flights. Jiangadlo has an
Speaker 2: obsession about tracking down those planes, those witnesses to history.
Speaker 3: I feel like our roles were reversed. Like he is
Speaker 3: the young storyteller asking the big questions, but I am
Speaker 3: the one that should be questioning him. That gives me
Speaker 3: a lot of pause. But as I keep talking, my doubts,
Speaker 3: my distrust start to disappear. He's so informal, so open,
Speaker 3: so earnest, that I give in me the experienced investigative reporter.
Speaker 3: I let myself get recruited by this Danito, this charming
Speaker 3: Italian guy.
Speaker 4: And from there I revealed my cooking and coffee making scales,
Speaker 4: and it was like a switch. We start paving the
Speaker 4: way for the investigation with lots of food, lots of pasta.
Speaker 3: His house became a whole new universe for me. We
Speaker 3: would alternate between my cigarettes and the ones he rolled
Speaker 3: by hand, and that amazing coffee he Brew. We became
Speaker 3: friends and developed, I would say a very intense relationship.
Speaker 3: We decided to start looking for the planes together.
Speaker 2: From Orbit Media, I'm Andre Skawa Shadow. This is Avenger,
Speaker 2: the story of Medium Lewin. Episode two, the investigation. Medium
Speaker 2: arrives at Jiangado's apartment that first time with a lureful
Speaker 2: Cilingo's book in hand. Silingo is the former Navy officer
Speaker 2: you heard of in the last episode. Giancarlo had given
Speaker 2: her that book on their first meeting at a cafe.
Speaker 3: The day Giancarlo gave me the book, I got home,
Speaker 3: put on some music, poured myself a glass of wine,
Speaker 3: and spent the entire night reading and smoking.
Speaker 2: Marlboroughs it sounds as if she's reading a romance novel,
Speaker 2: except she isn't. Silingo's book is about death and planes.
Speaker 2: It's a first person nareed, a confession by a man
Speaker 2: who helped kill hundreds of people by tossing them out
Speaker 2: of planes into the ocean.
Speaker 3: Such a bizarre looking thing. This cover, it's salmon pink,
Speaker 3: like the one they use for trashy romantic novels. Then
Speaker 3: the title Porciannuca mas Forever never More with exclamation marks.
Speaker 2: In his book, medium read for the first time an
Speaker 2: account of a death flight from the point of view
Speaker 2: of a murder. He writes about the thirteen prisoners inside
Speaker 2: the plane. They're heavily sedated, lying on the floor. A
Speaker 2: doctor opens this wooden box filled with syringes and injects
Speaker 2: the prisoners with a second dose of tranquilizer Finande. That's
Speaker 2: the actual audio of alol Fosilingo retelling his experience through
Speaker 2: a television interview. The doctor gives them a powerful doze.
Speaker 2: The corporal and Silingo are wearing gloves, and as soon
Speaker 2: as the prisoners fall into a deep slumber, they start
Speaker 2: undressing them, preparing them for the final step. Kao, Chicoho
Speaker 2: and Choano. It suddenly one of the young corporals on
Speaker 2: the plane. He says, this guy in his twenties started
Speaker 2: sobbing when he realized what they were doing. That disrobing
Speaker 2: the prisoners in the middle of the flight meant only
Speaker 2: one thing. They took off their clothes to leave zero evidence,
Speaker 2: to disappear them completely, no way to identify the bodies
Speaker 2: if they ever floated to shore. Almost Maalintro Alban Silingo
Speaker 2: says how the commander informed them when they were high
Speaker 2: enough above the water and then gave the order to
Speaker 2: shove the bodies out of the plane one by one.
Speaker 2: Medium recalls a scene from the book and.
Speaker 3: At one point Silingo slips and almost falls out of
Speaker 3: the plane.
Speaker 2: He almost tumbles out the rear cargo door. For the
Speaker 2: next death flight. He attaches himself with a rope to
Speaker 2: the inside of the plane's door, and I read.
Speaker 3: The descriptions of people being injected with tranquil visers.
Speaker 2: Medium had never come across such a vivid account of
Speaker 2: the actual mechanics of this killing machine. In his book,
Speaker 2: Silingo even recounted the procedure for preparing prisoners at the
Speaker 2: detention center. Twenty five people, men and women were lined
Speaker 2: up in the dark hallway of a basement. No one
Speaker 2: said a word. A Junta officer put on loud music
Speaker 2: and forced them to dance. Then the doctor injected them
Speaker 2: with the first dose of tranquilizer. Little by little, the
Speaker 2: injections began to have an effect. Their dancing slowed down,
Speaker 2: Some leaned against the wall, others sat on the ground, and.
Speaker 3: Then details of people being transferred on trucks and loaded
Speaker 3: on planes.
Speaker 2: It was all terrifying, But for Medium and Giancarlo the
Speaker 2: book served another purpose. They find some clues.
Speaker 3: Silingo literally lays out the specific models of the planes,
Speaker 3: like the sky Van.
Speaker 2: No one had dug into these details yet, including Medium,
Speaker 2: one of Argentina's top journalists. The names and models of
Speaker 2: the planes, they were all there overlooked for years. In
Speaker 2: jian Cadlo's apartment, they work side by side. It's intimate.
Speaker 2: The apartment is so small that Medium often spreads her
Speaker 2: work on gian Cadlo's bed when there's no room on
Speaker 2: his desk.
Speaker 3: The fact I would spend my free, very limited time
Speaker 3: working on this investigation, an investigation that's based on my
Speaker 3: own story, it really motivated me, you know, and I
Speaker 3: felt comfortable with Giancarlo, and he knew how to give back.
Speaker 2: Jian Cadlo is a master multitasker, cooking amazing Italian dinners
Speaker 2: while going over his findings from the day's work. It's
Speaker 2: like the investigation into these hidden crimes is being fueled
Speaker 2: by good food, coffee, and cigarettes.
Speaker 3: We were like an actual couple. That's the type of
Speaker 3: relationship we had, but without the sex. Like a good couple,
Speaker 3: we understood each other, we had common goals, and we
Speaker 3: had each other's backs.
Speaker 2: Medium is older than Jiancardlo by a dozen years, but
Speaker 2: they meet at a time when they're both going through
Speaker 2: difficult moments in their personal lives.
Speaker 3: We were both sort of broken, and I guess we
Speaker 3: were each feeling a void with our relationship.
Speaker 2: Medium's boyfriend had left her for a younger woman, and
Speaker 2: Jiancadlo was going through his own difficulties. Little by little,
Speaker 2: in between the investigation and the tangents where they went
Speaker 2: on about their personal lives, they start to build trust
Speaker 2: and the investigation starts gaining momentum. Now that they have
Speaker 2: the names of the planes, they begin to learn more
Speaker 2: about them.
Speaker 3: These planes can dispose of their cargo in flight. For example,
Speaker 3: the sky Van, which is a pretty small plane, has
Speaker 3: a rather large rear door.
Speaker 2: In this plane, the sky Van doesn't look like most
Speaker 2: small planes. It's rectangular shaped with two propellers. It's nicknamed
Speaker 2: the flying shoe Box. It also has this spacious cabin.
Speaker 3: You would never say this is a beautiful plane. On
Speaker 3: the contrary, it's horrible. It looks like a big bird
Speaker 3: with a big beak and a giant belly.
Speaker 2: And she becomes obsessed with the planes. They're possible smoking guns.
Speaker 3: I was hooked and this suddenly changed the way I
Speaker 3: saw Giancarlo from who does this foreigner think he is
Speaker 3: asking all these questions to the sky might be riot,
Speaker 3: it's an outsider, but it probably sees things we don't see.
Speaker 2: But Giancarlo wasn't just a support for Medium. He doesn't
Speaker 2: just have her back. He has his own agenda.
Speaker 3: So he started asking me questions about the dictatorship, about
Speaker 3: my time in captivity.
Speaker 2: Medium knows what he's trying to get at, but she's
Speaker 2: uneasy about her past. These are painful memories. She still
Speaker 2: trusts Giancarlo, and she tells him about her kidnapping.
Speaker 3: I'm at this bus stop in Buenos Aires and I'm
Speaker 3: in survival mode. I start fighting back, screaming, you know,
Speaker 3: yelling my name and my mother's phone number as loud
Speaker 3: as I could, and people want to help me. But
Speaker 3: then the men pull out their guns and they scare
Speaker 3: everybody away.
Speaker 2: It's May nineteen seventy seven, a year since the military
Speaker 2: coup in Argentina. In a group of armed men and
Speaker 2: playing clothes surround Medium.
Speaker 3: Then they drag me into the back of the Ford
Speaker 3: Falcon and they take off. They put a hood on me.
Speaker 3: I could hear them talking through a radio, and they
Speaker 3: start insulting me, calling me a bitch. They knew my name,
Speaker 3: they knew exactly who I was, and there was clearly
Speaker 3: a sort of perversed excitement inside that car.
Speaker 2: She's blindfolded and forced out of the car.
Speaker 3: They make me go up some stairs. They lead me
Speaker 3: into a room, make me take off my clothes. Then
Speaker 3: they tie me to a table with my hands and
Speaker 3: feet crossed. They take off my blindfold, and I see
Speaker 3: a guy with green eyes staring at me. He's balding,
Speaker 3: probably in his thirties, and he says, Medium, look at me.
Speaker 3: I'm responsible for your life and your death. As long
Speaker 3: as you cooperate with us, nothing will happen to you.
Speaker 2: Ten men standing there, just staring at Medium.
Speaker 3: One of them talks right into my ear while holding
Speaker 3: my hand and caressing my hair. Others start insulting me.
Speaker 3: How many abortions did you have? How many men did
Speaker 3: you sleep with? I start panicking, and while one guy
Speaker 3: is trying to calm me down, another screaming at me,
Speaker 3: and another starts fondling me.
Speaker 2: One guy brings over a plastic bag and puts it
Speaker 2: over Medium's head. When she starts to asphyxiate, he removes it.
Speaker 3: I kept telling myself to stay calm. I knew they
Speaker 3: just wanted information, so I focused on breathing, deep breath.
Speaker 2: But it's not over. She sees an electric crod just.
Speaker 3: The crackling sound itself, it was terrifying, and then the
Speaker 3: electric shock. It was unbearable.
Speaker 2: One afternoon, Giangadlo and Medium are in the apartment. There's
Speaker 2: coffee cigarettes enrolled by Giancarlo. There's the big window with
Speaker 2: that beautiful view of the city, the trees.
Speaker 3: We were reading and carefully rereading every detail, looking for
Speaker 3: clues that would lead to the plains.
Speaker 2: But Giancarlo has more questions. Things he has to know,
Speaker 2: no matter how rude or painful the questions are to Medium,
Speaker 2: did Medium know about the death flights? What she was
Speaker 2: in captivity?
Speaker 4: Some details about people being transferred came up, So I
Speaker 4: asked her, did you have any idea that this was
Speaker 4: happening while you were in captivity?
Speaker 2: This is a delicate moment. That first day of her captivity,
Speaker 2: that Green Night official had told Medium that she must
Speaker 2: cooperate or die. So what did cooperation entail?
Speaker 3: I mean? As prisoners of the junta, we had no
Speaker 3: official knowledge of the death flights? Well, we weren't sure
Speaker 3: they were real. We didn't know.
Speaker 2: But Jiancarlo presses Medium, So when exactly did you first
Speaker 2: hear or suspect about people being thrown from planes?
Speaker 3: Into the sea. Every Wednesday, they transferred prisoners to what
Speaker 3: they claimed was a medical facility in Patagonia. That's where
Speaker 3: they would be reformed, and then eventually they were told
Speaker 3: they would be reintegrated to society. Later, we saw their
Speaker 3: shoes and their shirts pants. We wondered what actually had
Speaker 3: happened to them. When we asked, our captors told us
Speaker 3: they had to change clothes. But one day a prisoner
Speaker 3: came back. He was taken by mistake. When they returned him,
Speaker 3: he was sedated, and while in and out of consciousness,
Speaker 3: he told us what he saw. He said they gave
Speaker 3: them some sort of injection and loaded them into trucks.
Speaker 3: They all started feeling dizzy, but he stayed conscious enough.
Speaker 3: He said he saw the tarmac and the big cargo plane.
Speaker 3: He was telling us something we were not mentally prepared
Speaker 3: to hear.
Speaker 4: So you did know about the death flights.
Speaker 3: Like I said, we didn't really know for sure, and
Speaker 3: we didn't want to believe it. We chose to be
Speaker 3: in denial. It made living in those horrible conditions a
Speaker 3: little bit less horrible. It's like a survival mechanism. It's
Speaker 3: like a patient with terminal cancer. They know they're going
Speaker 3: to die, but they latch onto every little bit of
Speaker 3: hope they can find. They're not constantly thinking about how
Speaker 3: they're going to die, so they'll try anything to stay alive.
Speaker 2: Giancarlo is quiet. He's a good listener in his apartment.
Speaker 2: It's getting late, I can say.
Speaker 3: One of the things that hurts the most is not
Speaker 3: having closure around the deaths of my friends. It always
Speaker 3: leads me to ask myself, why did I survive? The
Speaker 3: truth is, I don't think I'll ever be able to
Speaker 3: answer that question. But now I feel like this investigation
Speaker 3: could help me understand that a little better, and it
Speaker 3: could help bring those who murdered so many people to justice.
Speaker 2: Weeks after her kidnapping in nineteen seventy seven, medium sits
Speaker 2: in a small, dirty, makeshift cell. There's a door with
Speaker 2: a few small holes to let oxygen in, but she
Speaker 2: isn't really there.
Speaker 3: I would often imagine I was remodeling my dream apartment
Speaker 3: inside my grandmother's building. I had always dreamed of moving
Speaker 3: into that apartment with.
Speaker 2: One juan Is Davis, the activists she had fallen in
Speaker 2: love with in episode one. They had just been married
Speaker 2: and gone underground not long before the coup, the daydreaming
Speaker 2: is cut short. The torture has stopped, but her captors
Speaker 2: grill her constantly. They want information about her comrades. They
Speaker 2: make her call the safe house, to which she reported
Speaker 2: every day when she was underground.
Speaker 3: Nobody would want to talk to me. I had obviously
Speaker 3: missed my daily check ins for weeks, so every time
Speaker 3: I called they answered, but they knew I was compromised,
Speaker 3: and they just ended the call.
Speaker 2: But every day they brought a phone to her cell.
Speaker 3: Every day, they insisted. Every day they brought the phone,
Speaker 3: and I told them it was pointless to keep calling.
Speaker 3: But one day, out of the blue, the person that
Speaker 3: picked up the phone at the safe house answered my
Speaker 3: call with a code for a meeting.
Speaker 2: In the next episode, Argentina is chosen to host the
Speaker 2: World Cup, the biggest sports event out there, right in
Speaker 2: the middle of the repression, with the entire world watching.
Speaker 3: The stadium was just blocks away. I felt helpless. It
Speaker 3: was painful because the World Cup blinded all argent Times
Speaker 3: from what was happening, and we the disappeared. We were
Speaker 3: the number one victims of that blindness.
Speaker 2: From Orbit Media, This is Avenger, the story of Medium
Speaker 2: Lewin I'm Your Host and senior producer Andrescavacheo. The series
Speaker 2: was produced by Seguielrodrie Sandino and edited by Monica Campbell.
Speaker 2: Original score Nicolas Pachela, mixing and mastering Christopher Hoff and
Speaker 2: Austin Smith. Assistant producers Andres Feschtenholz and Eleanna Gillespie, FactCheck
Speaker 2: Alejandro Marinelli and Leonardos Canoni. Legal review Nil Rossini. Casting
Speaker 2: director Paula Gammon was The executive producers from Orbit Media
Speaker 2: are Steve Fishman Fisher Stevens, Marcy Wiseman, and Katie Springer.
Speaker 2: The voice actors in Avenger include Alexis Bledel, Asmidium Lewin
Speaker 2: Fulvio de la Volta as Giancarlo Serraudo, Gonzalo Vargas as
Speaker 2: Endrique Pinedo, Edgardo Manono Castro as Bruno Vain, and Tom
Speaker 2: Schubert as Carlos, Marcos, Miliana and Gustavo. This podcast was
Speaker 2: produced in association with Sonoto. The Sonoto executive producers are
Speaker 2: Camilla Victoriano, Joshua Weinstein, and Jasmine Romelo. The rest of
Speaker 2: the Sonota production team includes senior producer Carmel Gratol, editor
Speaker 2: Rodrigo Cresco producer Paloma Navarro, Nicoletti, Evelyn Orive, Marianna Cornello,
Speaker 2: Sara Mota, Manuel Parra, Hanna Baram and Tasha Sanloval. Special
Speaker 2: thanks to Radio and CASA and Pomeranec Recording Studios in
Speaker 2: Buenos Aires, and to Medium Lewin and Giancarlo Serraudo for
Speaker 2: letting us tell their story. Thank you for listening.
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