The 'trial of the juntas' and Evita’s missing body

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes, all with an Argentine theme.

We find out more about the 1985 ‘trial of the juntas’ when the country’s former military leaders stood accused of torturing and murdering thousands of their own people. And we hear from historian Dr Victoria Basualdo about life in Argentina, both before and after the trial.

Also, the story of the grandmothers who championed the study of genetics to find their missing loved ones. And why tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Buenos Aires in 2015. Plus, the bizarre story of Eva Peron's disappearing corpse. And finally, more on the Argentine animator who Walt Disney wanted to hire.

Contributors: Luis Moreno Ocampo - prosecutor Dr Victoria Basualdo – historian, FLACSO, the Latín American School of Social Sciences Dr Victor Penchaszadeh – geneticist Agustina Paz Frontera – journalist and writer Domingo Tellechea – art restorer and embalmer Hector Cristiani – grandson of Quirino Cristiani

(Photo: Forensic anthropologist Clyde Snow giving testimony to the trial, 1985. Credit: Daniel Muzio/AFP via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Mariana Spring, the BBC's social media investigations correspondent.
0:06.3	In my podcast, I've been investigating what happened to the daughter of a conspiracy theorist
0:10.9	who died having rejected chemotherapy.
0:13.5	It would mean the world to me if I could make it that she wasn't just another in the long line of people that die in this way.
0:18.9	How does this reflect the rise of health conspiracy theories on social media and beyond?
0:24.8	The new series of Mariana in Conspiracy Land. Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:34.1	Hello and welcome to The History Hour from the BBC World Service with me, Max Pearson,
0:39.0	the past brought to life by those who were there.
0:42.0	Today we visit Argentina, a nation overshadowed by a history of military dictatorships and repression.
0:48.2	We meet the grandmothers who used genetics to find loved ones.
0:51.9	We had to prove that they were our grandchildren, and that's where
0:55.9	we ask for the help of science, to be able to locate and prove that the children were ours
1:01.7	despite the absence of their parents. Also, the man behind the first ever animated feature film,
1:08.3	and the Buenos Aires marchers fighting violence against women.
1:11.9	There were many testimonies from people who for the first time could say out loud that they
1:16.1	had been abused. They were saying it in a square where there were one many of people who were
1:21.1	willing to believe them. Plus the bizarre story of Ava Perron's disappearing corpse.
1:26.3	This is the room where Dr. Petira involved, Eidtas's body.
1:31.3	This group of 20 people took the body and put it in the van and took the body all over the city through different places.
1:38.6	But first, Argentina's 20th century history is overshadowed by a sequence of military dictatorships,
1:45.1	the consequences of which continue to be felt to this day.
1:48.1	But there have been attempts to confront the past, and that's where we're going first,
	...

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