WEBVTT - Avenger | 1. The Process 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.880 Hello, Avenger listeners. It's Steve Fishman and I'm really glad 0:00:03.880 --> 0:00:06.120 you've tuned in. I hope you love this show as 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:09.200 much as we do. A quick word on an upcoming 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:14.160 bonus episode. We're doing a bonus with Miriam, the real Miriam. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:18.720 We'll be asking her questions, your questions, and getting answers. 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.840 She'll update us on what's going on in her world 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:26.040 and a lot has Please email your questions or thoughts 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:32.840 or comments too. Info at Orbitmedia dot fm. Oh and 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:36.120 Fisher Stevens can answer your questions too. He's our co 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.639 founder and resident Oscar winner. He's an actor you saw 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:43.520 him in Succession and director of actors like al Pacino 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:48.760 and Justin Timberlake. For Avenger, he directed Alexis Bledel, who 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:52.720 voices Miriam. If we're lucky, Alexis who was the star 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.400 of Gilmore Girls and Handmaid's Tale and is the daughter 0:00:56.440 --> 0:01:01.639 of an Argentine. We'll chip in answers to so let 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:05.600 us know your thoughts and questions, hopes and prayers. Info 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:11.840 at Orbitmedia dot FM. Thanks. I want to introduce you 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:16.800 to our newest true crime series, Avenger. It's something special 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:21.440 and a little different. Yes, there's murder, many murders, but 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:25.800 this crime is of a scale that almost defies imagination. 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:28.600 I'm not going to spoil it, but I will tell 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:33.559 you this. Bringing the culprits to justice is complicated because 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:37.040 the government doesn't want anyone to know a crime has 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.880 been committed. In this episode, we meet the young woman 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:45.119 who will fight the government. We meet her in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:50.280 A quick word about subscriptions. If you love ads, listen on. 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.480 If you're not so keen on ads, sign up for 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:58.480 True Crime Clubhouse on Apple Podcasts. That's our subscription channel. 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:02.240 You'll get no AD and also you can binge the 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:06.200 entire Avengers series. It's just too ninety nine a month. 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:08.200 Thanks. 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.440 Before we begin, please note that for this story we 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:16.560 interviewed Medium and everyone else for dozens of hours in Spanish. 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:27.720 We hired actors to voice their words in English. 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:31.440 By then, it was much more than a feeling. I 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:37.200 knew that I was being followed. I avoided going to 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:40.600 my family's house because I knew they would be there 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:41.960 waiting for me. 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:48.080 It's late afternoon, nineteen seventy seven. Medium is in a 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:52.200 neighborhood in Buenos Aires. She's nineteen It's been a year 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:59.400 since Argentina's military seized power a coup to bring back 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:03.800 peace and stability, says the military dictator, people like Medium, 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.040 a young political dissident, are now targets. 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.919 I was actually worried about my grandmother. It had been 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:14.919 a while since i'd last seen her. She was ninety two, 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.640 and she was frail. I just wanted to call, you know, 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.840 check in. I get to the phone booth and I 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:27.320 notice a man in line. His young, slim and he's 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:31.120 wearing a jean jacket, and I see that when his 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:33.720 turn comes up, he doesn't end up making a call. 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:39.120 So now I'm on alert. I start heading toward the 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:44.640 nearest bus stop, where at least there were more people around. First, 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:48.480 he follows me to the bus stop. Then I see 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:52.280 him inside the bus. I immediately jump off at a 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:56.320 random stop, but he also manages to get out. So 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.160 I turn my head and I see a dark red 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.200 four foul and a long gun barrel hanging out from 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:06.720 one of the windows. Now I'm running out of ideas. 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:13.560 I run into a nearby store, and when I look back, 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.560 I see that three men were following. I try to 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.679 stay calm and make my way through the meat aisle, 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:24.760 pretending I'm shopping. There's no back exit, so I take 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.240 off again through the front door. I tried to catch 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.480 a bus that was slowing down, and the Ford Falcon 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:36.040 speeds up right toward me. The bus driver other people 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:38.599 try to help, but the men pull out their guns 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:44.520 and scare everybody away. The bus also takes off. They 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:49.320 tackle me and they tell me their police. So I 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:53.479 start screaming, I'm Miriam Lewie, please help me. 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:05.080 From Orbit Media, I'm andres caaba scheedo. This is Avenger. 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:32.640 The Story of Medium Lewin, Episode one the process. Fast 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:36.640 forward three decades to twenty ten. It's four in the afternoon, 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.000 the busiest time of day at Canal Drese, a national 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:43.680 TV channel in Buenos Aires. Medium sits in her office chair, 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:46.880 looking through a big glass window that the cars driving by. 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:52.040 In Argentina, Medium is a well known investigative journalist and 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:56.760 she's relentless going after perpetrators of sexual abuse. She's reported 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:01.240 from Gaza, Russia, lots of places. Now she's in the 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:06.440 middle of the biggest investigation of her career. Medium looks 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:08.880 at her phone. It's a US number. 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.719 Ola Ola Medium, Ola Bruno. 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:18.800 She Olae, an Argentine reporter calling from Florida. Medium had 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.440 recently hired him to help her follow up on a tip. 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.080 She had sent him to meet the owner of a 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:28.240 small plane that maybe had once been used by Argentina's 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.960 dictatorship to kill hundreds of people. They were tossed out 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:39.760 of planes alive into the sea. Somehow the plane ended 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.880 up in Fort Lauderdale. Medium hoped that it still held 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:45.360 clues evidence of the atrocities. 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:48.440 We had no money to make the trip ourselves, so 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:53.400 we hired a stringer, a freelance journalist and actually Bruno 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:56.640 was a sports commentator, no career. 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:01.120 See in on the phone. The report confirms it's the 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:01.919 right plane. 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:06.960 I mean, we never even dreamed of running into something 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:11.160 so valuable. And then the owner of the plane shows 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:15.800 him the flight logs that were left inside untouched. The 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:19.280 hose logs date back to the late seventies and early 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:23.640 eighties when the military junta was in power. It was 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:29.920 all there dates, roots, origin, destination, and the most important 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:33.040 part the names of the pilots. 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:47.880 I spent a lot of my childhood in Argentina in 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:51.280 the early nineties at my grandfather's repair shop behind our house. 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:58.200 It was a middle class suburb of Buennoes Aires, and 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.880 every morning I'll wake up to Rado Colonia, my grandfather's 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:06.200 favorite station. Inside his repair shop, the floors and shelves 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:10.360 were stacked with old radios, tools, and countless broken televisions. 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.560 One day he decided I was old enough to hear 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:19.120 about the death flights. He told me how only about 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:23.320 a decade earlier, thousands of people had been kidnapped, loaded 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:29.320 into airplanes and thrown into the ocean. I was barely 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.360 nine at the time. We lived several blocks from the shore. 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:36.560 I could picture the planes above the water, bodies free falling. 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:40.079 I had a lot of questions, but my grandfather didn't 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:45.680 have answers. This was in the nineties and many Argentines 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.320 were still searching for answers about loved ones who had 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:52.960 gone missing. Mothers, fathers were still mourning in fear and 0:08:53.040 --> 0:09:02.120 in silence. It seemed at times Argentina, the entire country 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:06.160 was looking away, intent on bearing the ghosts of the past. 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:10.560 For a long time, journalist, Medium Lewin wanted to bury 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:14.120 them too. For good reason, she had been one of 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:18.320 the disappeared. Better to forget years of captivity of torture. 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:24.600 Then one day, an annoying, rude, incredibly persistent Italian phota 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:30.040 journalist entered her life, asking lots of uncomfortable questions. Theirs 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:33.760 would be an unlikely alliance, but together they set out 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:36.440 to bring justice to the victims of the Bueilos de 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:39.640 la Morte, the death flights. It would prove to be 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:44.400 the investigation of a lifetime. The investigation would also become 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.839 crucial in my search for answers. How did an entire 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:51.960 country allow this to happen? Was there will there ever 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:59.199 be justice? Where were the pilots who flew the death flights? 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:05.120 In two thousand and seven, Giancarlo Siraulo is living in 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:09.679 Buenos Aires. He's the annoying Italian photojournalist who gets in 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.720 touch with Medium. He invites her to a cafe to 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:13.840 take some photos. 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.240 He says he's been assigned to take some portraits of me. 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.360 I don't know something about a story about survivors of 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:22.280 the dictatorship. 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:25.440 I had no idea whether she tell me to just 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:28.520 go to hell. The photos were just an excuse for 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:32.200 us to me. I mean, why would I take portraits 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:35.960 of a survivor inside a cafe? I knew I wasn't 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:38.080 going to use those photos. 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.000 In his thirties, Giancadlo is a bit of a nomad. 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.840 He's been all over the world telling stories, taking photos, 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:51.079 fulfilling his obsession to document the scars left by fascist governments. Recently, 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.719 he traveled from Italy to Argentina on a mission. He's 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:58.360 become obsessed with the death flights. He's heard about Medium 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:02.600 and decided he needs her, a survivor and just as important, 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.280 a journalist on the ground who might help him find 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:09.760 some answers and jian Cadlo's request comes at a good time. 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:15.080 I was in a bad place emotionally at the time. 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.880 I was in my fifties. My two boys were in 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:22.360 their mid twenties, so they were never home. The man 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.240 I was with back then left me for a younger woman. 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:31.720 I was alone, heartbroken. I needed some sort of distraction, 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:36.840 something to occupy my time, even if it involved meeting 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:41.680 a stranger to talk about trauma. 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:44.760 She agrees to meet gian Cadlo at a cafe in 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:48.080 the center of Buenos Aires. It's a gray, windy day 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:52.120 in August, and Medium comes straight from her office wearing 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:56.680 her signature fluorescent orange jacket. Her red, curly hair blowing 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:01.440 in the wind. The cafe is on AVENI and withe Julia, 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:06.320 a majestic avenue lined up with purple Jacaranda trees. It's 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:09.240 not the first time that a foreign journalist contacts Medium 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:11.680 for an interview, but Giancarlo is different. 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:15.240 He says hi with a kiss on the cheek. He's 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:20.600 clearly non American. He has this baby face that makes 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:23.720 him look in his mid twenties, and long wavy hair, 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:26.360 green eyes and an earring. 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:31.000 And I'm shocked by her face. These beautiful in her 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:34.000 eyes have this light to them, and a lot of 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:36.920 the survivors that interview didn't have the light in their eyes. 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:46.240 They start talking, gian Cadlo seems eager, too eager. He's 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.880 leaning toward Medium over the table. Medium is not impressed. 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:52.360 The whole setup seems off. 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:58.040 I'm thinking, how does this serious, prestigious Italian magazine send 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:02.200 this guy to do a story about the dictatorship. He 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:06.800 just doesn't seem very professional. And then he grabs his 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.880 camera and starts taking pictures of me without even looking 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.960 into the camera. I thought that was kind of weird, 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:15.199 so I asked if he got the shots that he 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:20.319 needed instead of answering, his smiles and asks me a question. 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.120 Do you know where the planes use for the dead 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:23.680 flights are? 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:27.079 He was kind of telling me, how come you never 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:31.960 thought of this? I was an experienced investigative reporter, so 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:35.640 that felt like a lack of respect. You know, how 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:39.240 dare he ask me that I'm a survivor of a 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:44.160 concentration camp. Also, I'm like twelve years older than him. 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.640 I have no idea where the planes could be and 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:53.839 why why should I care? But then again, through those planes, 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:57.840 we could get to the pilots and maybe identify them, 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:00.840 and that would be amazing. 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.880 Giangarrdlo's convinced that if they could find the planes, that 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:08.679 could lead to the pilots of those death flights. 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.079 I mean, these are the guys who were responsible for 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:16.240 the genocidal machine that killed so many people. I'm trying 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:18.800 to see how she would react, hoping it would make 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.240 her want to help me with the investigation. That's their 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:23.160 strategy at least. 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:28.560 And then Giancarlo pulls this strange looking book from his backpack. 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:32.600 He puts it on the table. It's written by a 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:37.520 guy named Adolfo Silingo, a former Navy captain He was 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.280 the first Navy officer to admit to being part of 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.760 a death flight crew. I knew about Silingo. I mean 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.080 I had heard about him, but I hadn't seen this 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:48.120 book yet. 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.240 It was an obscure book, only a few copies were 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:54.680 ever printed. Giancardlo gives it to her and she puts 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.040 it in her bag. Their meeting ends without a commitment, 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:00.680 but it sparks something within her. 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:05.880 Was there possibly something big to investigate, something that had 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:11.920 been overlooked for a while. I avoided investigating the dictatorship, 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:17.320 revisiting that trauma. I had friends who were put on 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:21.000 those death flights. I didn't feel I could stick to 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:25.760 journalistic boundaries, like my emotions might betray me at any 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:27.920 moment and send me into a breakdown. 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.600 Medium grew up in a nice, middle class neighborhood in 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:39.680 Buenos Aires. She was an intellectual child. She loved books 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.840 and poetry. Her dad was a big influence. He was 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:47.040 a leftist. He gave her books about socialism, workers' movements. 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:51.040 When my dad noticed me bringing flyers home, bringing the 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:55.400 anarchist paper, he started feeding me more anarchist literature. 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:57.880 Soon she was an activist. 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:01.080 I was into political military and see. But I also 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:05.280 loved the idea of working for a newspaper. I was 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.440 a good writer, so I signed up for journalism school. 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:11.520 The problem was my parents wanted me to have a 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.720 real career, so I had to enroll in economics at 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:19.560 the same time to appease them. We were young, but 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:24.040 we felt like we'd live through a lot. Social change, 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:28.960 access to education, better salaries. It all seemed at our fingertips. 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.800 I mean, it didn't feel like a fantasy. It felt 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:37.160 like we could actually change the world. I wanted to 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.560 see a country where there was equality. We were young, 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:42.080 and we felt invincible. 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:45.800 When Medium's parents started to worry about her safety, they 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.120 offered to fly her to Brazil or somewhere outside Argentina. 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:53.560 Abandoning the cause wasn't even an option for us. We 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:57.920 thought if we abandoned the militancy and activism, we would 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:02.280 be betraying our friends who gave their lives for the movement. 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:12.760 The economy was in shambles. 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:16.639 For sixty days, six thousand metal workers struck unofficially against 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.360 wage restraint in face of huge inflation. 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.920 And political violence and tentions grew the government. 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:26.080 Federal police moved in five hundred workers were sacked and 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.760 one hundred and forty three flung in jail without trial. 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:31.720 One man handing out leaflets was machine gunned from a 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.879 police car. Another shot dead while painting a slogan on 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:35.359 a wall. 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:44.760 It was ruthless Lasa lasona continua personal left his group's 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:48.480 retaliate target and government officials, police chiefs. 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:50.960 Six point thirty one morning in this down at hill, 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:55.240 Buenos Aires suburb, two cars pulled up, Five men got out. 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:58.760 One knocked on the door. The policeman who answered received 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.560 one bullet in the brain. The remaining men then drilled 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:03.600 the front of the house with at least eighty bullets. 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:07.480 Before leaving, they blasted holes in the roof with three grenades, 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:10.080 injuring the man's widow and two children. 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:25.400 Violence divided the country. The best known group targeting police 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:29.880 and government forces was called the Montenados. Some supported them, 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.560 including Medium, as the best hope against forces of repression, 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:39.879 but others saw only chaos and violence. They craved stability. Meanwhile, 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:43.359 Medium was in the midst of a political awakening. She 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.320 got a job at a factory and helped organize union workers. 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:49.679 Her parents started to worry about her, but medium was 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:54.080 on a different path now. The entire nation was on edge. 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:58.640 Inflation was skyrocketing, the violence was getting worse. The government 0:18:58.840 --> 0:18:59.800 seemed powerless. 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.640 During the last months of nineteen seventy five, everyone already 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:18.560 knew that a military coup was about to happen. It 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:24.120 was March twenty fourth, nineteen seventy six. My mom barges 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:28.600 into my room with a portable radio broadcasting about soldiers marching, 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:33.280 and then she tells me that there was a coup. 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:37.040 I remember being in bed and just getting into a 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:41.560 fetal position and crying. I was crying because I felt 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:46.959 afraid of the changes that were coming, more control less freedoms. 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:53.480 And I remember what it felt like to step out 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:56.919 of my house for the first time, just after the coup, 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:01.000 watching the tanks rolling down this streets in the middle 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:04.879 of the city. We had seen this before, the military 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:09.560 that targets activists, sending them to jail, trying them in court. 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:14.639 We actually thought, we hoped the military would help stop 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:20.800 the violence. I never imagined the underground extra judicial process. 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:24.920 Never imagined they would kidnap me, put a hood on me, 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:26.359 torture me. 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:36.359 Argentina's armed forces took control a coup led by General 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:40.000 jrgue Rafael Videla. Up until then, he had played a 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:42.720 neutral role when it came to politics, but he was 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:46.800 the country's most powerful military leader. He promised peace a 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:51.960 stable economy. Officially, his plan was called the national reorganization 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:57.240 process or just the process. If the professor reorganization national 0:20:58.200 --> 0:20:58.560 the man. 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:04.679 He would say things like the process would require time 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:08.680 and effort. They had their own vision for the country, 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:14.720 a right wing, neoliberal nation with conservative Christian. 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:20.080 Values, values that General Videla says were threatened by subversives, students, 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:25.560 union members, teachers, activists, people like medium, who he vowed 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:27.760 to quote annihilate. 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:33.960 That rhetoric about preserving Western Christian values, about creating paranoia 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:38.200 that communism was taking over our country. To me, none 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:42.040 of that was surprising. I remember a friend telling me 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:44.920 he was leaving the country because he'd heard that the 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:48.520 military was planning a blood bath, that they were going 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:52.040 to kill us. All we thought it was an exaggeration. 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:56.879 We didn't see Argentina as a banana republic, and we 0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:59.440 had never witnessed the type of blood bath. My friend 0:21:59.520 --> 0:22:04.480 was pretty thing. We thought he was a coward. 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:10.280 General Videla is swearing in takes place inside the presidential Palace. 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:13.320 The room is filled with men in green and blue 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:17.960 military uniforms, Catholic bishops and families of Junta leaders watching 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:22.800 from a balcony in grays and John al Salon Blanco. 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:29.840 Everyone is standing. Suddenly, two giant doors open and General 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:35.040 Videla appears. His tall, slim with a thick mustache. He 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:48.640 has a stern look and he takes the oath Joe. 0:22:57.200 --> 0:23:00.760 Rumors about horrific torture started going around. 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:05.760 The rumors are true. The Junta takes its crack down 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:08.120 and left its groups to a new level. 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:15.879 People having their arms ripped off their bodies, electric shocks, rape. 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:19.520 The orders from our group leaders were clear, do not 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:20.760 be captured alive. 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:27.120 For medium, it means leaving her parents' house. She knows 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:29.800 she's a person of interest. She fears she will bring 0:23:29.880 --> 0:23:32.560 danger to her family, so she goes into hiding. 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:36.919 The thing is that immediately after the coup, the military 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:42.000 started arresting friends people I knew, right, So we knew 0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:45.600 that the military were going to torture those friends, and 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:51.679 they had information about where I lived. And the reality 0:23:51.880 --> 0:23:56.440 is not everyone can endure torture, So if they gave 0:23:56.840 --> 0:24:00.200 your information, the military would be at my door or 0:24:01.200 --> 0:24:04.359 the fear and terror was not only aimed at armed 0:24:04.440 --> 0:24:09.640 groups or known activists, It was aimed at society. They 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:15.280 were going after school teachers, professors, union members, and then 0:24:15.359 --> 0:24:19.600 they were targeting their families too. It was too dangerous 0:24:19.600 --> 0:24:26.000 for me to keep sleeping at home. At one point, 0:24:26.080 --> 0:24:28.920 my dad didn't speak to me for at least six months. 0:24:29.760 --> 0:24:33.479 He was against my activism. He knew how committed I was, 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:37.120 and he knew how dangerous it was. He was scared 0:24:37.920 --> 0:24:41.360 because people he knew were disappearing left and right, and 0:24:41.440 --> 0:24:43.040 he didn't want me to get killed. 0:24:43.840 --> 0:24:46.200 By then, MEDIUM had fallen in love with a fellow 0:24:46.280 --> 0:24:51.000 journalism student, juan Is Davis. They met in college. He 0:24:51.040 --> 0:24:52.320 was an activist like her. 0:24:53.200 --> 0:24:58.119 He was sweet, adorable. Never again did I feel the 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:02.760 way I felt for Juan. His voice was so special. 0:25:03.520 --> 0:25:07.640 Just hearing him talk made me emotional. He loved his 0:25:07.680 --> 0:25:08.840 family and he loved me. 0:25:11.840 --> 0:25:14.879 After the coup, they drop out of journalism school and 0:25:14.960 --> 0:25:15.800 go underground. 0:25:16.400 --> 0:25:19.560 Juana and I got a place at first, but I 0:25:19.600 --> 0:25:22.760 would only sleep there a few days a week. I 0:25:22.800 --> 0:25:25.399 would lie to my parents. I'd tell them I was 0:25:25.440 --> 0:25:29.560 going to sleep at friends houses, but then more of 0:25:29.600 --> 0:25:33.520 our friends started to get kidnapped, so we had to leave. 0:25:34.160 --> 0:25:37.639 We were never in the life of a typical couple. 0:25:37.680 --> 0:25:40.520 We were on the move almost every week, living one 0:25:40.600 --> 0:25:43.960 day at a time. We never even thought about the future. 0:25:44.800 --> 0:25:47.760 Before they go underground together, they buy two cheap wedding 0:25:47.800 --> 0:25:50.600 bands and ask the leader of their activist group to 0:25:50.680 --> 0:25:52.160 marry them, and. 0:25:52.040 --> 0:25:56.600 At that very informal ceremony, the guy called us a 0:25:56.680 --> 0:26:00.760 revolutionary couple. He said that our commitment into each other, 0:26:01.440 --> 0:26:06.120 our vow was to fight to change Argentina, to make 0:26:06.160 --> 0:26:13.399 it a more just place. And we moved to the 0:26:13.440 --> 0:26:17.560 outskirts of Buenos Aires, and we got this tiny, tiny 0:26:17.600 --> 0:26:20.359 apartment with a tin roof. It was in the back 0:26:20.359 --> 0:26:24.560 of a family's house, and we started buying some furniture, 0:26:25.400 --> 0:26:29.360 a couple of chairs, a table, and some plates, a 0:26:29.400 --> 0:26:33.359 cover for our bed, and we put a Beetles poster 0:26:33.600 --> 0:26:34.520 in the bedroom. 0:26:35.840 --> 0:26:38.320 Medium and Juan don't get to live there for very long. 0:26:38.920 --> 0:26:41.639 Crackdowns become more frequent. They have to go back to 0:26:41.720 --> 0:26:45.280 hiding at friends' houses or at cheap motels. They're preparing 0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:46.080 for the worst. 0:26:49.840 --> 0:26:52.320 I looked out the window, and if we saw anyone 0:26:52.400 --> 0:26:56.120 that looked like an officer or a soldier, I would 0:26:56.240 --> 0:27:00.920 freak out and Juan calm me down. He always told 0:27:00.920 --> 0:27:06.080 me I was paranoid. Everything was so intense, the loss 0:27:06.119 --> 0:27:11.280 of our friends, attending nearly empty group meetings because most 0:27:11.320 --> 0:27:16.760 people disappeared. I mean, for us, one day felt like 0:27:17.119 --> 0:27:22.000 ten years. We made love a lot. We loved each other, 0:27:22.440 --> 0:27:26.520 but we were living on the edge. So every time 0:27:26.600 --> 0:27:29.040 we could touch each other, every time we could kiss 0:27:29.040 --> 0:27:32.240 each other, it was like it could be the last time. 0:27:33.560 --> 0:27:36.320 And there was one critical part of their group's training 0:27:36.840 --> 0:27:39.439 that they would always carry a cyanide pill and pledge 0:27:39.480 --> 0:27:41.520 to swallow it before they were captured. 0:27:42.320 --> 0:27:45.240 We had decided to take our own lives before having 0:27:45.320 --> 0:27:48.280 to endure torture, which could lead to us giving away 0:27:48.320 --> 0:27:52.480 information and that could lead to our friends getting captured. Also, 0:27:52.560 --> 0:27:55.480 it was an order coming from the leaders of our organization, 0:27:55.880 --> 0:28:02.399 don't get captured alive. To me, it was simple. You 0:28:02.480 --> 0:28:06.520 get captured and they own your body. They would pass 0:28:06.640 --> 0:28:09.440 you over from one force to another, or if they 0:28:09.480 --> 0:28:11.800 wanted to, they would just put a bullet in your 0:28:11.840 --> 0:28:16.600 head so they would dictate when and how you died. 0:28:17.400 --> 0:28:21.080 But with the Sinai pill, we were in control of 0:28:21.160 --> 0:28:23.840 our death. So it was kind of like a small 0:28:23.920 --> 0:28:25.080 victory over them, you know. 0:28:29.320 --> 0:28:32.119