My father the killer

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2020

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“Did you actually kill hundreds of people, Dad?” This is certainly not a question that many people feel the need to ask their parents. But for a group of young women in Argentina, it was one they could no longer ignore. Their fathers have been accused, held under trial and in some cases sentenced for some of the worst crimes in Argentina’s history – all members of the military and police forces during the country’s last military regime, that kidnapped, tortured and killed thousands of people over a period of seven years. Forty years later, these women have come together and decided to speak up against their fathers. The BBC’s Valeria Perasso followed them on their journey to become a voice in the ongoing public conversation about human rights to help heal the country – and themselves.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Since it clicked in my head that what I knew about the dictatorship had been done by my father or that he worked for them,
0:10.7	I've been feeling ashamed and guilty as if I were accomplished because I have this
0:20.0	knowledge and there's nothing I can do. So it's like I'm keeping a secret I don't want to keep.
0:25.7	We haven't emerged to kill or to hurt others.
0:31.3	Given that there was so much damage and hatred,
0:35.0	we want to use love to overcome our past. To be here to demonstrate is political as well as personal.
0:55.0	As the song says, just as it happens to the Nazis,
1:00.0	we're going to come after you.
1:02.0	We have to take a public stance and embrace our condition,
1:06.0	that of having a blood bond with those criminals. I'm 39 I'm a teacher psychologist and a mother of two and I'm also the daughter of a
1:27.8	perpetrator of genocide.
1:30.8	Hi my name is Paula.
1:32.6	I'm from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
1:35.0	And we are family members of people that participated in Argentina's genocide during the dictatorship from 1976 to 1983. The military government just disappeared
1:52.3	people killed raped, tortured and stole kids.
1:58.8	We are family members of people that perpetrated these crimes against humanity.
2:05.0	These women have been through unspeakable times in Argentina,
2:10.0	like we all have.
2:11.0	Now, these daughters of policemen and army officers who have remained silent for decades are starting to talk.
2:20.0	I grew up on the same streets, the same city but I never spared thought for them during those
2:26.5	turbulent years. I'm Valeria Perasso of the BBC World Service and Analia and Paola are going to talk to me now about their fathers.
2:39.0	My dad was born in 1952 into a typically middle class home with its economic struggles.
	...

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