00:00:57.970 --> 00:00:59.850
Did you understand that?

00:01:00.350 --> 00:01:07.100
"One person wanting to rouse in another
memories that belonged to a third

00:01:07.150 --> 00:01:10.250
is an evident paradox.

00:01:10.320 --> 00:01:18.100
To play out that paradox with abandon
is every biography's innocent will."

00:01:18.150 --> 00:01:20.150
-- Jorge Luis Borges

00:01:57.300 --> 00:02:00.250
It's like... the feeling of memories.

00:02:02.150 --> 00:02:05.020
That's what I have left
of my grandparents' story.

00:02:06.300 --> 00:02:13.000
Kind of like... vibrations,
hazy images, scattered stories.

00:02:14.550 --> 00:02:18.920
I often wonder what to do with
the memories and experiences of others.

00:02:24.870 --> 00:02:26.620
A short biography of my life:

00:02:27.250 --> 00:02:29.850
It wouldn't be appropriate
to call it an "autobiography".

00:02:30.170 --> 00:02:33.000
Calling it "memories" would be
more fitting.

00:02:33.820 --> 00:02:39.120
Be that as it may, things took
a special turn since the last World War.

00:02:45.070 --> 00:02:48.750
The columns of humanity are crumbling
under their foundations,

00:02:49.600 --> 00:02:52.700
morals are smothered, a loss of security,

00:02:52.870 --> 00:02:56.970
a lack of faith and a life rhythm
steadily rising in intensity

00:02:57.050 --> 00:02:59.220
puts man at a crossroads;

00:02:59.350 --> 00:03:01.700
how to live in order to survive.

00:03:04.750 --> 00:03:09.920
The millions drowned in their own blood,
dead in gas chambers,

00:03:10.220 --> 00:03:15.420
beheaded through other means,
claim for revenge and justice.

00:03:23.220 --> 00:03:24.620
That would be the prologue.

00:03:24.850 --> 00:03:28.300
On the next pages
I'll try to describe my life a little,

00:03:28.420 --> 00:03:31.650
from my first memories to today.

00:03:40.650 --> 00:03:42.900
I never knew my grandfather Bernardo.

00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:47.250
He died a few days after I was born.

00:03:49.670 --> 00:03:51.750
He wrote this text.

00:03:52.520 --> 00:03:56.350
Although we don't know exactly when,
in what year.

00:03:59.950 --> 00:04:02.020
What pushed him to share his story?

00:04:07.450 --> 00:04:10.150
Did he write to survive his own death?

00:04:17.300 --> 00:04:19.900
What survives of a survivor?

00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:24.520
Oh, my God.

00:04:26.700 --> 00:04:29.020
At night things come back to me.

00:04:30.870 --> 00:04:34.070
Suddenly things appear and I think,
"My God,

00:04:34.600 --> 00:04:37.150
how is it that I never remembered
about this before?"

00:04:38.070 --> 00:04:42.650
And there are things
that just pop up in my memories.

00:04:43.070 --> 00:04:46.870
Things that sometimes I never even told
my children or my granddaughters.

00:04:47.150 --> 00:04:52.700
Things that I'd love to tell them
about what I've lived through,

00:04:52.800 --> 00:04:54.770
what I did when I was young.

00:04:55.120 --> 00:04:58.770
One remembers surprising things.

00:04:58.970 --> 00:05:01.320
That's memory for you, right?

00:05:06.050 --> 00:05:07.900
- How are you?
- It's been a while!

00:05:08.120 --> 00:05:12.350
- It's been a while since we last met.
- Yes.

00:05:15.070 --> 00:05:19.650
- It's hard for me to fit with this belly.
- Yeah? Well, push your chair back.

00:05:19.670 --> 00:05:20.650
That's it.

00:05:23.220 --> 00:05:29.350
MEMORY AND BEYOND

00:05:36.900 --> 00:05:39.350
- Paula, do you want watermelon?
- OK.

00:05:40.810 --> 00:05:42.420
- I was...
- At grandma's?

00:05:42.470 --> 00:05:52.070
At her house, I found a biography
of grandpa's, I don't know if you read it.

00:05:52.400 --> 00:05:56.770
Beno's biography.
He wrote down his story...

00:05:58.470 --> 00:06:01.470
- He wrote down his story?
- He did.

00:06:01.570 --> 00:06:07.750
He did a prologue, a part
about the ghetto, another about the camps,

00:06:07.800 --> 00:06:12.920
he wrote it just like that,
in a typewriter

00:06:13.100 --> 00:06:16.200
- from that time.
- I can't believe it. I didn't know.

00:06:16.300 --> 00:06:23.150
And, well... It's an impressive text.

00:06:23.250 --> 00:06:26.320
- It describes a lot of things...
- Show me.

00:06:26.370 --> 00:06:31.450
These things, grandma keeps them
and no one knows about them.

00:06:33.770 --> 00:06:37.050
We know grandma's story so well...

00:06:37.500 --> 00:06:44.820
that we often forget
about the rest of the family.

00:06:44.870 --> 00:06:47.550
I never saw this. I never saw this.

00:06:47.650 --> 00:06:50.870
I've a bad memory, but a good
visual memory. I never saw this.

00:06:50.920 --> 00:06:56.800
- Your grandma gave you this?
- Yeah, I found it in her house one day.

00:06:57.100 --> 00:07:00.720
She has all kinds of things
among her documents.

00:07:00.770 --> 00:07:02.470
I'm dying to read it.

00:07:03.070 --> 00:07:05.620
- Well, go ahead.
- How much did he write?

00:07:05.650 --> 00:07:07.620
Is Dany's story here too?

00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:10.070
No.

00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:16.200
I recognize the typewriter's font.
Can you believe that?

00:07:16.250 --> 00:07:19.220
But I don't remember this.

00:07:19.470 --> 00:07:23.670
It has dates, his parents' names...

00:07:23.900 --> 00:07:27.570
Everything they did in the ghettos,
and in the camps...

00:07:27.700 --> 00:07:32.520
I always said I have
your grandma's entire story in my head,

00:07:32.750 --> 00:07:36.550
I think mostly because of everything
she told us about Spielberg,

00:07:36.670 --> 00:07:42.520
that whole story... and of dad's,
I had so little... How nice!

00:07:42.570 --> 00:07:46.920
It's a bit more complete of an account.

00:07:46.950 --> 00:07:53.320
It helps me to piece together
my dad's story.

00:07:53.720 --> 00:07:58.200
We're seeing different versions of this,

00:07:58.250 --> 00:08:00.770
because grandma
always tells it differently.

00:08:01.850 --> 00:08:06.970
This is different altogether.
It's new information...

00:08:07.050 --> 00:08:11.450
Grandma adapts the story each time
she tells it. She changes it a little.

00:08:20.620 --> 00:08:22.550
I grew up with my grandmother.

00:08:23.770 --> 00:08:28.450
However, for many years
I knew nothing of her story.

00:08:29.220 --> 00:08:30.250
Nothing.

00:08:32.300 --> 00:08:39.220
With my sister we used to get into
her closet and try on her clothes,

00:08:39.420 --> 00:08:42.300
her necklaces, everything we could find.

00:08:51.150 --> 00:08:54.146
I remember the closets smelled
somehow like something was amiss,

00:08:54.187 --> 00:08:56.650
alien, like exile.

00:09:01.100 --> 00:09:04.800
The house usually smelled
like homemade soup.

00:09:07.850 --> 00:09:11.820
We didn't know anything
about her story, until she told it.

00:09:24.450 --> 00:09:33.220
- How long have you had this album?
- I've had this since 1947.

00:09:34.450 --> 00:09:35.370
Wait.

00:09:37.870 --> 00:09:40.120
A bag inside a bag.

00:09:43.570 --> 00:09:47.370
Before I left Germany...

00:09:48.270 --> 00:09:52.170
my coworkers gave me a gift,

00:09:53.270 --> 00:09:57.200
an album they'd put together
with pictures.

00:09:58.800 --> 00:10:01.870
After that I kept adding to it
with my own pictures.

00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:07.300
My husband had decided
not to remain in Poland,

00:10:07.500 --> 00:10:11.320
so we tried to cross the border
to Germany,

00:10:11.370 --> 00:10:13.750
but it was blocked by the Allies.

00:10:13.850 --> 00:10:15.600
To the American part.

00:10:16.050 --> 00:10:22.700
We were able to cross
and we got to a refugee camp in Berlin.

00:10:23.100 --> 00:10:26.250
The camp was called UNRRA Lager.

00:10:26.550 --> 00:10:30.000
Look. To remember it by, right?

00:10:31.400 --> 00:10:32.170
Look.

00:10:32.670 --> 00:10:37.600
I was working at the refugee camp,

00:10:38.500 --> 00:10:41.000
helping in the kitchens.

00:10:42.850 --> 00:10:45.070
I was a very young girl.

00:10:45.250 --> 00:10:49.370
And I had a pretty nice little body.

00:10:49.850 --> 00:10:51.170
Graceful.

00:10:51.800 --> 00:10:56.670
With a white apron
and a little thing on my head...

00:10:56.870 --> 00:10:59.600
Serving people food.

00:11:00.200 --> 00:11:01.670
And I moved...

00:11:03.550 --> 00:11:07.600
I think I moved quite well then.

00:11:08.620 --> 00:11:12.420
And it turns out the people
who wanted to start a theater,

00:11:12.770 --> 00:11:14.500
started to follow me.

00:11:15.650 --> 00:11:20.200
And they followed me. Wherever I went,
someone went after me.

00:11:20.900 --> 00:11:24.450
And, truthfully,
at the beginning I got scared.

00:11:25.370 --> 00:11:30.500
Because... I was married already,
with Bernardo, my husband.

00:11:31.500 --> 00:11:32.770
And I told him,

00:11:32.800 --> 00:11:36.770
"Look, there are people following me
and I don't know who they are,"

00:11:37.820 --> 00:11:41.770
and he told me, "I'll keep an eye
on these people, see who they are."

00:11:42.050 --> 00:11:43.070
Well,

00:11:43.520 --> 00:11:47.300
he suddenly finds one of them, a man,

00:11:47.820 --> 00:11:51.920
and he tells him,
"why are you following my wife?"

00:11:52.100 --> 00:11:55.420
"She's my wife."
"Oh, your wife? So young?"

00:11:56.150 --> 00:12:00.250
he said, "look,
we're organizing a theater,"

00:12:01.300 --> 00:12:08.120
"and we need young people,
lithe and graceful,"

00:12:09.670 --> 00:12:11.050
and I said, "I like it,"

00:12:13.820 --> 00:12:18.670
Oh, well, this thing here,
we worked in plays,

00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:21.920
I'll say... in short sketches.

00:12:22.150 --> 00:12:26.720
so in one of them I played a baker,

00:12:27.120 --> 00:12:30.920
in another I was a dancer...

00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:34.050
And we sang things...

00:12:34.570 --> 00:12:39.070
related to the bakery, very nice songs.

00:12:39.700 --> 00:12:41.220
Do you remember the songs?

00:12:41.370 --> 00:12:46.520
- Do you want me to sing and translate?
- Sing in Yiddish first, it's much nicer.

00:12:47.020 --> 00:12:49.180
We're bakers.

00:12:49.600 --> 00:12:51.770
Nice and beautiful young people.

00:12:52.020 --> 00:12:54.750
We work night and day,

00:12:55.100 --> 00:12:57.670
mixed in the dough.

00:12:58.370 --> 00:13:02.300
We... work here...

00:13:03.320 --> 00:13:05.670
We-- I can't believe this...

00:13:05.970 --> 00:13:08.220
mixed in the dough...

00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:15.060
But I sang it just this morning.

00:13:15.650 --> 00:13:19.620
How weird, right?
I have to remember this song.

00:13:20.550 --> 00:13:23.250
Where does it come from,
that impulse to tell her story?

00:13:23.720 --> 00:13:25.400
Why is she telling me this?

00:13:26.170 --> 00:13:29.220
I hear her and I think
about the feebleness of memories,

00:13:29.800 --> 00:13:31.850
the impossibility of replaying them.

00:13:32.570 --> 00:13:38.050
From her tale, I take, above all,
her way of telling, and of forgetting.

00:13:40.650 --> 00:13:42.650
What does she hope we do with her story?

00:13:43.770 --> 00:13:45.550
It's still unknown to me.

00:13:45.820 --> 00:13:57.300
"The columns of humanity are crumbling
under their foundations" -- Bernardo Rus

00:14:09.250 --> 00:14:10.800
- How are you?
- Hi, how are you?

00:14:11.970 --> 00:14:15.060
- How's it going? A pleasure to see you.
- I'm happy to see you.

00:14:15.170 --> 00:14:16.870
- Of course.
- And thank you.

00:14:17.020 --> 00:14:19.370
- How are you?
- My daughter...

00:14:19.970 --> 00:14:22.470
Careful with that line. Watch out.

00:14:24.600 --> 00:14:26.200
Where do we sit?

00:14:31.850 --> 00:14:33.300
How are you, Sara?

00:14:38.470 --> 00:14:41.170
I visited Mauthausen.

00:14:41.800 --> 00:14:43.770
- At Mauthausen?
- I saw it.

00:14:43.850 --> 00:14:47.950
- There I was saved by the Americans.
- And it's awful.

00:14:48.800 --> 00:14:53.220
What was Mauthausen,
where we arrived in the last transport.

00:14:53.900 --> 00:14:59.200
Our transport got there...
like a Death March.

00:15:00.850 --> 00:15:07.800
Because we were exhausted,
after the Birkenau concentration camps...

00:15:08.350 --> 00:15:11.550
after working in an airplane factory,

00:15:12.900 --> 00:15:16.550
and everything
with such small body as I have,

00:15:17.520 --> 00:15:20.700
I weighted 55 pounds at most...

00:15:22.100 --> 00:15:23.650
when the war ended.

00:15:23.870 --> 00:15:29.870
There, in Mauthausen,
almost 5000 Spanish men lost their lives.

00:15:30.450 --> 00:15:31.800
5000 republican men.

00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:35.870
But there were camps for gypsies,

00:15:36.120 --> 00:15:38.970
for the disabled, for Jews...

00:15:39.420 --> 00:15:40.550
for Russians...

00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:45.050
There were camps for every nationality,
thrown together...

00:15:45.270 --> 00:15:48.270
We were like missing from the world, too.

00:15:48.620 --> 00:15:52.970
Because there are many people who
say they didn't know about these places.

00:15:53.420 --> 00:15:56.320
I'm not sure they didn't, because...

00:15:56.520 --> 00:16:02.570
many have to deny it now, and say
they didn't know what was happening.

00:16:03.070 --> 00:16:05.320
The world knew what was happening.

00:16:08.970 --> 00:16:11.800
I was born in Lodz, in Poland.

00:16:12.500 --> 00:16:15.420
A huge industrial city.

00:16:16.820 --> 00:16:22.620
When I was little I loved to play soccer.

00:16:24.500 --> 00:16:28.820
I was a pretty restless child,
a little rebellious.

00:16:29.900 --> 00:16:34.420
My childhood didn't last very long,
because...

00:16:34.550 --> 00:16:38.420
I didn't get to finish elementary school.

00:16:40.450 --> 00:16:42.400
When the Germans entered the city,

00:16:43.620 --> 00:16:49.600
I didn't understand yet how they would
treat us, and what would happen.

00:16:50.450 --> 00:16:55.350
And well, all that
was very frightening for me.

00:16:57.400 --> 00:17:06.670
When the war started all of my
childhood dreams blew up in smoke.

00:17:07.370 --> 00:17:12.900
And I had to adapt to things
that were a lot harder.

00:17:17.400 --> 00:17:19.300
Lodz... Oh!

00:17:21.650 --> 00:17:23.220
Ulica Piotrkowska.

00:17:25.500 --> 00:17:27.420
Look at this...

00:17:28.270 --> 00:17:30.700
Lodz's main street.

00:17:32.570 --> 00:17:33.850
Here is Piotrkowska,

00:17:33.900 --> 00:17:39.250
on the other side there was a neighborhood
where many Jews used to live.

00:17:43.350 --> 00:17:45.750
This city is exactly the same.

00:17:46.370 --> 00:17:47.800
They didn't destroy it.

00:17:47.870 --> 00:17:52.770
No, it's the same. This is what it
looked like in your time, didn't it?

00:17:53.750 --> 00:17:55.920
- Is this the one?
- That's right.

00:17:56.400 --> 00:17:58.650
- Ground floor?
- Ground floor, yes.

00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:07.650
Oh, what a wreck.

00:18:12.500 --> 00:18:16.000
- Oh, I can't believe it.
- This looks new.

00:18:16.100 --> 00:18:19.100
This is the entrance.
This is the entrance, here.

00:18:19.350 --> 00:18:24.170
This was the front door.
Downstairs was ours.

00:18:25.970 --> 00:18:28.020
This was like a fridge.

00:18:28.720 --> 00:18:31.450
When we made food for the holidays,

00:18:32.070 --> 00:18:34.850
it was kept very cold in here.

00:18:34.900 --> 00:18:40.300
The same place,
I wanted to see if it still exists.

00:18:51.420 --> 00:18:53.920
Oh my God, this is so old.

00:18:56.720 --> 00:19:04.850
Good morning. I've a question,
if this lady can come in for a moment.

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:07.100
- Yes, excuse me, madam.
- Do you speak Polish?

00:19:07.150 --> 00:19:10.600
- Come in, please.
- Come in.

00:19:10.650 --> 00:19:15.050
- Just over here, because...
- Good, good.

00:19:29.950 --> 00:19:32.520
- Madam, I hope you'll excuse me...
- Please.

00:19:39.320 --> 00:19:42.350
- Come in, please.
- I used to live here.

00:19:42.870 --> 00:19:44.070
You lived here?

00:19:45.350 --> 00:19:47.970
- Before the war.
- Come in.

00:20:06.020 --> 00:20:11.300
In this house the first toilet
in the building was installed.

00:20:12.250 --> 00:20:15.700
And here there was a... corridor.

00:20:16.350 --> 00:20:19.550
And I still remember there were...

00:20:20.750 --> 00:20:26.700
stripes on the wall...

00:20:27.620 --> 00:20:31.250
I can't believe this is still here.

00:20:32.220 --> 00:20:36.750
- Have you lived here long?
- Twenty-two years.

00:20:37.050 --> 00:20:42.650
And do the same people
still live upstairs since before the war?

00:20:42.770 --> 00:20:46.270
No, no one. There's no one left.

00:20:46.350 --> 00:20:48.120
Of course.

00:20:49.570 --> 00:20:52.800
It's great that I can still
communicate in Polish.

00:20:52.850 --> 00:20:54.620
- You speak it very well.
- How's that?

00:20:54.620 --> 00:20:57.970
- You speak a very good Polish.
- Thank you.

00:20:58.020 --> 00:21:01.500
So many years,
and you speak it very well indeed.

00:21:04.870 --> 00:21:11.120
This is the first time
I come back to Lodz.

00:21:13.170 --> 00:21:17.900
- I thank you very much.
- There's no need, really.

00:21:18.570 --> 00:21:20.970
It mustn't be very nice...

00:21:21.420 --> 00:21:25.050
I don't know what it feels like...

00:21:26.170 --> 00:21:29.950
I moved out of here when I was twelve.

00:21:32.170 --> 00:21:36.570
Going through this is very hard for me...

00:21:38.920 --> 00:21:41.200
But the house is exactly the same.

00:21:43.050 --> 00:21:48.600
We had to fix some things. It's old.

00:21:48.720 --> 00:21:51.550
And you have to climb the stairs.

00:21:52.250 --> 00:21:55.500
There's no elevator.

00:21:55.650 --> 00:21:58.200
Like in the old days.

00:21:59.520 --> 00:22:05.200
- Yes, yes.
- It's just the stairs, then?

00:22:05.620 --> 00:22:07.100
Look at that...

00:22:10.670 --> 00:22:16.670
- Madam, I thank you from the heart.
- There's no need.

00:22:16.750 --> 00:22:19.870
- Thank you.
- See you.

00:22:22.270 --> 00:22:23.600
Goodbye.

00:22:26.850 --> 00:22:31.500
- Is the stove the same? The iron stove?
- Kind of. I don't remember. Iron?

00:22:31.650 --> 00:22:37.920
And my father had...
further inside he had his sewing workshop.

00:22:38.870 --> 00:22:43.750
And here...
the first toilet built was ours.

00:22:43.850 --> 00:22:47.970
- Here's the tub.
- No, just the toilet and sink.

00:22:48.220 --> 00:22:49.950
Toilet and sink.

00:22:51.150 --> 00:22:54.800
It was the first toilet.
Is there one upstairs now?

00:22:54.820 --> 00:22:58.300
Yes, there is one now.

00:22:58.620 --> 00:23:00.670
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.

00:23:10.850 --> 00:23:12.970
- Let's see...
- This one.

00:23:14.420 --> 00:23:19.100
Which one do you like best,
out of all these?

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:22.650
Oh, where is that picture?

00:23:22.720 --> 00:23:25.420
No, no, no, we skipped it. Wait.

00:23:25.950 --> 00:23:27.520
I like this picture.

00:23:28.750 --> 00:23:30.350
When I played Cozette.

00:23:34.350 --> 00:23:39.700
How did you relate to Cozette?
To the character?

00:23:40.720 --> 00:23:45.550
- This Cozette character.
- Well... it was that...

00:23:46.400 --> 00:23:49.020
She lived in poverty,

00:23:50.300 --> 00:23:54.020
she lived with her mother
in utter poverty.

00:23:54.970 --> 00:24:01.270
And she met this man,
who after being homeless

00:24:02.120 --> 00:24:04.370
got rich again,

00:24:05.200 --> 00:24:07.900
and he adopted us as family,

00:24:09.020 --> 00:24:14.670
I felt... like when I got out
of the misery I lived in,

00:24:15.700 --> 00:24:20.050
and suddenly I feel like in paradise.

00:24:21.250 --> 00:24:24.770
That was the change I felt.

00:24:24.800 --> 00:24:26.370
KAVANAGH BUILDING - BUENOS AIRES

00:24:26.570 --> 00:24:28.850
How was the arrival in this country?

00:24:31.220 --> 00:24:34.770
The arrival... truthfully...

00:24:36.270 --> 00:24:39.170
it's an amazing story.

00:24:40.070 --> 00:24:42.720
After Germany,

00:24:43.250 --> 00:24:46.700
we had to cross over to France,

00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:51.070
where my uncle
had already gotten the papers

00:24:51.770 --> 00:24:53.550
to come to Argentina.

00:24:53.770 --> 00:24:59.900
We had to pass through consulates,
because Argentina didn't receive us.

00:25:00.450 --> 00:25:04.250
So we went to Paraguay,
and then crossed over to Argentina,

00:25:04.450 --> 00:25:07.170
illegally, we were arrested,

00:25:07.550 --> 00:25:09.875
and again in Formosa,
(Province of Formosa)

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:15.750
doing everything we could
so they would receive us in Buenos Aires.

00:25:16.520 --> 00:25:18.820
Because in Perón's times,

00:25:19.270 --> 00:25:24.100
in 1948, you couldn't enter Argentina.

00:25:24.670 --> 00:25:28.120
the Jews were forbidden
to come to Argentina.

00:25:29.170 --> 00:25:34.870
Your grandfather Beno, Bernardo,
wrote a letter to Eva Perón,

00:25:35.920 --> 00:25:40.150
and she was probably moved
by this letter,

00:25:41.050 --> 00:25:45.170
so she sent us paperworks
to come to Buenos Aires.

00:25:53.850 --> 00:25:57.550
I was eager to have a child.

00:25:59.050 --> 00:26:03.500
Everyone said,
after my accident in the camps,

00:26:03.800 --> 00:26:05.970
that I would never have a child.

00:26:06.520 --> 00:26:09.750
Because I was with my husband,
but I didn't get pregnant.

00:26:11.800 --> 00:26:13.720
But when we came to Argentina

00:26:14.170 --> 00:26:17.050
my uncles got me to a doctor,

00:26:17.420 --> 00:26:20.370
and he told me, "You will have a child."

00:26:32.300 --> 00:26:38.070
My son was born
on July the 24th,1950.

00:26:41.100 --> 00:26:42.700
Daniel Lázaro Rus,

00:26:43.400 --> 00:26:46.420
the greatest gift life gave me.

00:26:50.020 --> 00:26:51.800
And five years later,

00:26:52.100 --> 00:26:54.470
I could have my daughter, Natalia,

00:26:55.120 --> 00:26:56.350
and it was...

00:26:56.920 --> 00:27:01.370
a truly happy time.
We were a complete family.

00:27:01.420 --> 00:27:05.770
A family that was beginning
to live a normal life,

00:27:06.170 --> 00:27:09.350
to fight for a better life.

00:27:23.950 --> 00:27:26.950
Daniel had a Nikon camera,
really beautiful.

00:27:27.770 --> 00:27:29.820
It's still around, somewhere.

00:27:31.070 --> 00:27:33.850
It was his hobby.
He took pictures and developed them

00:27:33.900 --> 00:27:36.620
in an improvised dark room in his house.

00:27:37.500 --> 00:27:39.700
All that was lost to a flood.

00:27:41.150 --> 00:27:45.020
I would've liked to see those pictures,
to see through his eyes for a while.

00:27:47.270 --> 00:27:50.520
How do you remember something
that's impossible to tell about?

00:27:51.850 --> 00:27:55.450
How do you remember something
that was never told at all?

00:27:57.320 --> 00:27:58.970
MY FIFTEENTH BIRTHDAY

00:27:59.020 --> 00:28:03.220
Through the magic of movie-making
today we go back in time.

00:28:03.600 --> 00:28:08.370
It's Saturday, March 20th, 1971.

00:28:08.620 --> 00:28:11.820
It's Naty's fifteenth birthday.

00:28:18.850 --> 00:28:24.220
- Do you remember the party, mom?
- Oh, it was such a beautiful party!

00:28:26.900 --> 00:28:28.750
The queen has arrived!

00:28:29.850 --> 00:28:33.300
- Look!
- My mom! Oh my God!

00:28:33.450 --> 00:28:35.700
How old was Dany there?

00:28:36.820 --> 00:28:38.350
Five years older.

00:28:38.670 --> 00:28:40.370
- Twenty.
- Twenty?

00:28:40.550 --> 00:28:41.850
Look at grandma.

00:28:42.150 --> 00:28:45.500
- Look at her hair!
- No, that dress! I can't believe it.

00:28:46.750 --> 00:28:51.150
That hairdo was real?
I mean, was it your real hair?

00:28:51.250 --> 00:28:52.500
Yeah, it was real.

00:28:52.970 --> 00:28:56.300
- Everybody had a hairdo like it.
- Everyone's was the same, yes.

00:28:56.350 --> 00:28:58.870
It was in fashion then!
What did you expect?

00:29:00.100 --> 00:29:01.950
- What joy!
- Who are they?

00:29:02.070 --> 00:29:05.300
- Mom, the camera was always your thing.
- Yes, it was.

00:29:05.400 --> 00:29:07.550
Did you see how
you just looked at the camera?

00:29:08.120 --> 00:29:09.700
Look, mom! Look!

00:29:11.820 --> 00:29:14.500
- Oh my God!
- That's great!

00:29:14.700 --> 00:29:17.000
- Waving at the camera...
- Waving at the camera!

00:29:17.870 --> 00:29:19.060
That's great.

00:29:19.670 --> 00:29:20.900
And who is she, mom?

00:29:21.700 --> 00:29:24.420
These two were crashing your party.

00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:29.920
- I can't believe it.
- Yes.

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:33.820
You remember even the ones
who crashed the party! Unbelievable.

00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:36.050
Moskovitz brought them.

00:29:38.400 --> 00:29:42.250
- And you got so mad.
- I remember, I remember now.

00:29:42.670 --> 00:29:44.470
Oh, look!

00:29:45.970 --> 00:29:49.700
She was my friend
in the concentration camp.

00:29:51.200 --> 00:29:54.870
We worked
at the airplane factory together.

00:29:56.220 --> 00:29:59.550
- And you met her again here in Argentina?
- Yes, yes.

00:30:04.170 --> 00:30:06.520
Everyone was at that party.

00:30:08.220 --> 00:30:12.900
They were my friends,
but none of them exist anymore.

00:30:30.820 --> 00:30:32.650
Oh, I'll get the spoons.

00:30:36.200 --> 00:30:37.270
OK.

00:30:40.520 --> 00:30:43.150
- Want a sweet treat?
- No.

00:30:45.700 --> 00:30:50.300
I've several things on my mind, but...

00:30:50.800 --> 00:30:51.870
Actually...

00:30:53.350 --> 00:30:57.320
Thinking about how we always
talk about our family's story,

00:30:57.320 --> 00:31:01.270
because, truthfully, the family has
some kind of obsession over it.

00:31:01.970 --> 00:31:07.170
Over our history, over having
what happened always on our minds,

00:31:07.420 --> 00:31:11.220
we talk about it... too much, perhaps.
I don't know.

00:31:11.850 --> 00:31:13.020
It's like...

00:31:13.570 --> 00:31:19.350
There's like some sort of obsession
over keeping these memories...

00:31:20.550 --> 00:31:22.200
I thought that...

00:31:23.320 --> 00:31:27.550
On the one hand, it's that,
like, "why so much?"

00:31:27.620 --> 00:31:29.370
Because... isn't it too much?

00:31:29.770 --> 00:31:33.000
Too much Shoah all the time?

00:31:33.950 --> 00:31:38.920
So much talk about it, and...

00:31:39.700 --> 00:31:40.900
Too much, right?

00:31:42.420 --> 00:31:44.800
I think that...
we always talk about it, right?

00:31:46.100 --> 00:31:48.020
That the survivors didn't talk.

00:31:48.720 --> 00:31:50.020
- Right?
- Yes.

00:31:50.100 --> 00:31:52.870
It was hard for them,
and many of them still can't talk.

00:31:52.920 --> 00:31:54.670
Grandma's not among them. Anyway.

00:31:55.970 --> 00:31:59.050
So at one point,
with this Spielberg project thing,

00:31:59.950 --> 00:32:02.270
there was a breaking point. I mean,

00:32:02.720 --> 00:32:05.350
this project,
where they sat the survivors down

00:32:05.450 --> 00:32:08.650
and recorded them into a database,
and all that,

00:32:09.920 --> 00:32:16.400
backed up by psychologists and everything,
it made them sit down and talk.

00:32:16.420 --> 00:32:20.750
And tell their whole stories,
from their childhood

00:32:21.250 --> 00:32:24.420
to the end of the war and beyond.

00:32:24.900 --> 00:32:27.100
That made them start talking.

00:32:27.470 --> 00:32:33.470
And that start pushed the subject
into the households.

00:32:33.550 --> 00:32:34.870
So, well...

00:32:36.470 --> 00:32:42.120
And I think it's that. I feel the same
as you, it's like an obsession.

00:32:42.200 --> 00:32:44.500
It's hard to get away from the subject.

00:32:44.800 --> 00:32:53.500
Every activity is about Shoah Day,
Victory in Europe Day, and all that.

00:32:54.820 --> 00:32:59.650
And honestly, it is kind of like that,
it's too much.

00:32:59.900 --> 00:33:02.650
We even pondered this in Generations,

00:33:02.820 --> 00:33:08.100
if people aren't getting sick
and tired of so much Shoah,

00:33:08.120 --> 00:33:10.270
if this isn't going to have
the opposite effect

00:33:10.270 --> 00:33:12.270
of no one wanting to know
anything about it.

00:33:12.470 --> 00:33:15.800
Anyway, there are always people
who never heard of it,

00:33:15.850 --> 00:33:19.220
schools that don't talk about the subject
and it's good for them.

00:33:42.500 --> 00:33:47.100
After our time in the ghetto,

00:33:47.200 --> 00:33:52.570
they put people together in train cars,

00:33:52.800 --> 00:33:54.900
we had to present ourselves there,

00:33:54.970 --> 00:34:00.270
and the Germans were already
taking us to the death camps.

00:34:02.170 --> 00:34:06.450
The truth is my mom wasn't doing so well,
so they took her out,

00:34:06.550 --> 00:34:09.500
and they were separating us
in two groups, left and right,

00:34:09.570 --> 00:34:13.820
and my mother was in the left group
and I was in the right one, a little girl,

00:34:14.120 --> 00:34:18.150
well, not so little anymore,
but I looked younger than I was.

00:34:18.420 --> 00:34:21.650
So I approached the German,

00:34:21.850 --> 00:34:24.270
and he's holding a whip,

00:34:24.500 --> 00:34:27.220
and he says, "how dare you come up here?"

00:34:27.270 --> 00:34:30.520
and I answered in German,
"you took my mom away from me,"

00:34:31.120 --> 00:34:33.370
And he said, "oh? How come
you speak German?"

00:34:33.400 --> 00:34:36.200
"In my house everyone speaks German."
"Yeah?"

00:34:36.350 --> 00:34:37.820
"Go look for your mother."

00:34:38.150 --> 00:34:41.450
So I was lucky enough
to get her to my side,

00:34:41.570 --> 00:34:44.070
and she spent
the rest of the time with me.

00:34:44.220 --> 00:34:50.600
So, we passed Auschwitz,
it was an awful time.

00:34:50.700 --> 00:34:53.850
Lying in the barracks,

00:34:54.300 --> 00:34:56.700
practically starving,

00:34:56.870 --> 00:35:02.200
they took our clothes,
they stripped all the women,

00:35:02.370 --> 00:35:05.850
and I had the luck of still
being able to be with my mother,

00:35:05.900 --> 00:35:11.300
who was a very skinny person, very thin.

00:35:11.500 --> 00:35:15.600
But through all this we were together
and gave each other warmth.

00:35:16.020 --> 00:35:18.850
And I want to show you something,

00:35:22.420 --> 00:35:29.370
I brought the two pots in which
my mother cooked for me in '45,

00:35:29.470 --> 00:35:31.920
they saved my life.

00:35:33.470 --> 00:35:38.250
These two pots survived along with me.

00:35:38.810 --> 00:35:40.930
DIANA WANG -- PRESIDENT
SHOAH'S GENERATIONS

00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:42.170
Survivors...

00:35:43.020 --> 00:35:46.400
The victims of Shoah,
like the victims of any tragedy,

00:35:47.850 --> 00:35:53.670
one is walking, living their normal life,
and suddenly there's a hole.

00:35:54.020 --> 00:35:56.750
This thing that happens
is like a fall into a hole.

00:35:56.950 --> 00:35:59.870
You're falling, you're falling
and you don't know where it ends.

00:35:59.920 --> 00:36:02.770
You're falling, you're falling
and you can't find your footing,

00:36:02.820 --> 00:36:07.720
you're desperate, because you can't breathe

00:36:07.870 --> 00:36:10.300
and there's nothing to hold onto.

00:36:11.270 --> 00:36:14.370
Three, four, five years of falling,
and falling, and falling...

00:36:14.800 --> 00:36:18.420
You never get there,
there's no end in sight.

00:36:19.100 --> 00:36:22.220
And suddenly, just like it started,
one day you're out again.

00:36:22.300 --> 00:36:23.600
And you keep walking.

00:36:26.300 --> 00:36:32.200
That "walking", when you get out
of that deep, unnamed, endless hole,

00:36:33.120 --> 00:36:38.150
where you stopped being who you were
and were someone else's "thing",

00:36:38.220 --> 00:36:40.620
a thing that someone else handled
instead of you,

00:36:40.720 --> 00:36:42.020
When you get out,

00:36:42.870 --> 00:36:46.100
The thirst is about getting
your life back, of living again,

00:36:46.150 --> 00:36:48.920
of putting together what was lost.

00:36:50.450 --> 00:36:52.770
So, you had to put all of that in a bag.

00:36:54.750 --> 00:36:58.300
Jorge Semprún said it
when he wrote Literature or Life.

00:36:58.650 --> 00:37:02.370
"I had to choose whether
to write about what happened to me..."

00:37:02.500 --> 00:37:06.070
Because he was imprisoned in Buchenwald
for being a communist,

00:37:06.200 --> 00:37:09.270
"...whether to write about
what happened to me, or live.

00:37:09.400 --> 00:37:13.170
And for 40 years I chose to live,
and just now I can write."

00:37:14.850 --> 00:37:21.900
So, suddenly Sarenka started to open
these stashed-away memories.

00:37:23.270 --> 00:37:25.050
And what does she do with them?

00:37:25.250 --> 00:37:26.950
And what she does is wonderful.

00:37:28.500 --> 00:37:30.670
She doesn't let this story defeat her.

00:37:31.020 --> 00:37:34.520
She doesn't let herself be crushed
by the weight of what she lived through.

00:37:34.720 --> 00:37:37.150
And remembering constantly what she lost,

00:37:37.270 --> 00:37:40.400
and remembering constantly
what she lived through,

00:37:41.550 --> 00:37:48.650
she keeps giving out this message,
that one can keep going.

00:37:49.300 --> 00:37:51.570
It's up to you. It's up to what you do.

00:37:52.350 --> 00:37:54.550
When you stop being
someone else's subject,

00:37:54.670 --> 00:37:58.700
when you retake control of your life,
it's up to what you do.

00:38:18.020 --> 00:38:22.420
When you were freed... how was that day?

00:38:24.670 --> 00:38:25.950
How did you feel...

00:38:26.600 --> 00:38:29.770
That was... a date;

00:38:30.800 --> 00:38:34.570
I was freed on the fifth day
of the fifth month of 1945.

00:38:36.170 --> 00:38:38.170
Very cabalistic.

00:38:38.800 --> 00:38:42.050
But also, for me, it was an amazing date.

00:38:42.170 --> 00:38:43.200
Of course.

00:38:43.500 --> 00:38:44.870
Do you know why?

00:38:45.550 --> 00:38:47.250
I was in a ghetto, in Lodz,

00:38:48.670 --> 00:38:51.170
where I met a young man.

00:38:52.770 --> 00:38:58.850
I fell in love with him.
I was fourteen, and he was twenty-five.

00:39:00.470 --> 00:39:04.220
I felt grownup already,
because I had to work and fight.

00:39:05.870 --> 00:39:09.150
I told him I had family in Argentina,

00:39:09.570 --> 00:39:11.370
an uncle, my mom's brother.

00:39:12.220 --> 00:39:18.120
"And someday we'll travel there,
if we survive the war."

00:39:18.320 --> 00:39:22.100
In the ghetto, the whole family
living in a small room.

00:39:22.600 --> 00:39:25.300
And this lad used to come to my house.

00:39:25.550 --> 00:39:28.250
"I'll write down a date for you.
Remember it."

00:39:29.270 --> 00:39:32.750
He wrote "5/5/45".

00:39:33.870 --> 00:39:41.350
If you survive this day, and I do too,
we'll meet in Buenos Aires,

00:39:41.370 --> 00:39:43.350
by the Kavanagh building.

00:39:44.300 --> 00:39:45.750
And I said, "What is this?"

00:39:46.320 --> 00:39:47.650
And he said, "I read..."

00:39:48.350 --> 00:39:51.400
because he was a grownup lad,
he read a lot about Argentina,

00:39:51.470 --> 00:39:53.100
as he found it interesting,

00:39:53.300 --> 00:39:57.000
"I read that there's a building
in Buenos Aires, called Kavanagh,

00:39:57.370 --> 00:39:59.900
and I know that
it's one of the tallest ones,"

00:40:00.200 --> 00:40:04.220
In the year '44, you can imagine...

00:40:05.520 --> 00:40:11.750
"and there is where we'll meet up."
And that date got burned into my brain.

00:40:12.670 --> 00:40:16.250
I survived the war,
and was freed on that exact date.

00:40:16.770 --> 00:40:19.350
I found this young man and got married.

00:40:20.400 --> 00:40:21.920
And he was my husband.

00:40:22.620 --> 00:40:25.900
And I had my two children with him.

00:40:26.650 --> 00:40:29.170
And did you come to see
the Kavanagh building?

00:40:29.720 --> 00:40:33.270
And we got here,
went to see the Kavanagh building,

00:40:33.670 --> 00:40:37.420
I still have to go with my children,

00:40:37.620 --> 00:40:40.620
as I didn't go with my daughter yet,
to stand in front of it,

00:40:40.820 --> 00:40:44.020
"this was the time to meet."

00:40:44.100 --> 00:40:46.400
And I'll take
my great-granddaughter there.

00:40:47.470 --> 00:40:51.750
So she sees where I met with
her grandfather, her great-grandfather.

00:40:54.900 --> 00:41:03.550
"Heritage is that which I can't appropriate."
-- JACQUES DERRIDA

00:41:14.900 --> 00:41:17.820
Doesn't something on that picture
catch your eye?

00:41:19.470 --> 00:41:24.150
- Well, it's interesting to me, at least.
- What do you see?

00:41:24.220 --> 00:41:28.850
- The scarf. The white scarf.
- Yes, it's true...

00:41:29.850 --> 00:41:32.670
I used to wear a white scarf.

00:41:32.850 --> 00:41:33.820
Yes.

00:41:33.970 --> 00:41:35.900
You know, I've never...

00:41:36.570 --> 00:41:41.220
I saw it as a normal thing,
as a thing I wore to work on the play,

00:41:41.600 --> 00:41:44.100
and you made me see, now...

00:41:44.450 --> 00:41:48.100
that I wore a white scarf to work.

00:41:52.470 --> 00:41:54.570
Here is my scarf...

00:42:05.120 --> 00:42:09.120
Daniel's pictures and the Mothers
of Plaza de Mayo-Founding Line,

00:42:10.270 --> 00:42:11.920
and I take this with me.

00:42:12.950 --> 00:42:15.350
I'll put in on my lapel,

00:42:16.320 --> 00:42:17.800
and... well.

00:42:22.350 --> 00:42:27.800
03-24-2016
40 YEARS AFTER THE COUP

00:42:28.900 --> 00:42:32.900
- The Mothers are over there, De Mayo Ave.
- Yeah, exactly.

00:42:33.470 --> 00:42:35.220
I want us to meet...

00:43:07.620 --> 00:43:10.800
- Thank you so much.
- Thank you, for being with us.

00:43:16.170 --> 00:43:20.310
The Mothers are over there,
at the corner on De Mayo Ave.

00:43:40.350 --> 00:43:44.100
Oh my God, what is happening to me?

00:43:44.600 --> 00:43:48.320
Are you sure you don't want to remove
your coat? It's very hot in the sun.

00:43:54.930 --> 00:43:56.560
Oh my God.

00:44:00.640 --> 00:44:05.930
EVERYTHING IS STORED
IN MY MEMORY

00:44:15.150 --> 00:44:19.170
NAVAL SCHOOL OF MECHANICS

00:44:19.250 --> 00:44:22.500
It's too hard for me
to pass by this place.

00:44:22.820 --> 00:44:29.570
Across the street from here were
the Atomic Commission headquarters,

00:44:29.670 --> 00:44:31.870
where my son worked.

00:44:32.520 --> 00:44:35.770
With rear admiral Castro Madero,
who was the boss.

00:44:38.570 --> 00:44:45.070
He met with us
and it was shameful how he treated us.

00:44:45.920 --> 00:44:52.300
And when I pass by here,
and I'm inside, I have my son on my mind.

00:44:53.750 --> 00:44:56.020
That's right.

00:45:03.140 --> 00:45:08.310
ATOMIC ENERGY NATIONAL COMMISSION

00:45:08.570 --> 00:45:10.070
He didn't know anything.

00:45:10.700 --> 00:45:12.750
No one knew anything.

00:45:17.820 --> 00:45:19.400
What can we do.

00:45:23.060 --> 00:45:24.430
MEMORY

00:45:24.890 --> 00:45:26.310
TRUTH

00:45:26.430 --> 00:45:27.930
JUSTICE

00:45:30.670 --> 00:45:38.170
It must be very hard to have lived
through the Second World War,

00:45:39.570 --> 00:45:43.170
to live in the ghetto,
in the concentration camp,

00:45:43.220 --> 00:45:45.170
- to lose...
- I was in Auschwitz.

00:45:45.650 --> 00:45:48.570
- To lose... family.
- All my family.

00:45:50.120 --> 00:45:52.700
And then, to relive everything

00:45:53.670 --> 00:45:57.650
in a phenomenon
with such similar characteristics.

00:45:58.470 --> 00:46:00.020
Unfortunately.

00:46:00.670 --> 00:46:04.750
I found concentration camps
here in Argentina!

00:46:05.550 --> 00:46:08.500
Thinking about this, me, personally,

00:46:09.020 --> 00:46:13.100
having been treated
in such a terrible way by the Nazis...

00:46:15.370 --> 00:46:18.320
Without food, hungry...

00:46:18.920 --> 00:46:21.250
practically naked,

00:46:21.750 --> 00:46:25.070
in the barracks in Birkenau Auschwitz...

00:46:26.820 --> 00:46:32.670
And to think my son could go through
the same thing as me, my God.

00:46:35.620 --> 00:46:38.200
We started running through...

00:46:39.170 --> 00:46:40.570
through the Ministry...

00:46:42.750 --> 00:46:43.700
of...

00:46:45.220 --> 00:46:47.950
let's see... General Harguindeguy was there.

00:46:50.970 --> 00:46:52.750
They mocked us.

00:46:53.820 --> 00:46:58.650
"Your son eloped with a girl,
and you come to look for him here."

00:46:59.700 --> 00:47:05.450
I knew my son wouldn't elope
without telling his parents first.

00:47:07.520 --> 00:47:09.050
He was a sensible man.

00:47:11.300 --> 00:47:14.820
What I felt... We lived in a house,

00:47:15.550 --> 00:47:17.420
and I never talked about this before.

00:47:19.200 --> 00:47:22.200
I was so desperate,

00:47:23.270 --> 00:47:25.050
that I went up to the roof,

00:47:26.820 --> 00:47:30.150
because I thought
that he trusted so much in me...

00:47:31.170 --> 00:47:38.720
that... as I am this war survivor mother
who fought so much for her survival,

00:47:39.100 --> 00:47:42.420
surely she could do something for me.
But I couldn't.

00:47:43.470 --> 00:47:45.200
I went up to the roof,

00:47:46.270 --> 00:47:48.120
and shouted so much,

00:47:48.670 --> 00:47:50.350
to see if he could hear me.

00:47:56.350 --> 00:47:59.870
And to those shouts...
there was no answer.

00:48:10.520 --> 00:48:14.670
This is Bernardo Rus' article,
that got published twice.

00:48:14.820 --> 00:48:18.750
This is the second time,
after his passing.

00:48:19.200 --> 00:48:22.750
The epigraph, written by me, says:

00:48:23.120 --> 00:48:27.900
Bernardo Rus was one of the many
Holocaust survivors

00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:31.500
who got to our shores
to rebuild their lives.

00:48:32.170 --> 00:48:34.750
Here he lived with his wife
and had children.

00:48:35.450 --> 00:48:40.500
One of them, Daniel Lázaro,
is currently detained and missing

00:48:40.550 --> 00:48:45.670
since July the 15th, 1977, at 14:30,

00:48:45.800 --> 00:48:51.060
when he was abducted from his workplace,
the Atomic Energy National Commission.

00:48:51.800 --> 00:48:55.720
Bernardo Rus,
perhaps because his heart couldn't take

00:48:55.820 --> 00:48:58.250
so much injustice and pain anymore,

00:48:58.470 --> 00:49:00.620
it stopped beating some weeks ago.

00:49:01.250 --> 00:49:06.000
Today, in his honor, because he fought
with tooth and nail to find his son,

00:49:06.170 --> 00:49:12.720
we publish this dramatic missive that,
dated on August the 5th, 1977,

00:49:12.800 --> 00:49:19.320
 he sent the then President,
lieutenant-general Jorge Rafael Videla.

00:49:19.500 --> 00:49:22.370
It's our understanding that
this isn't just a homage,

00:49:22.520 --> 00:49:24.850
but an exceptional document
in its own right.

00:49:24.920 --> 00:49:31.250
Next is Bernardo Rus' text,
in which he tells where he came from,

00:49:31.520 --> 00:49:35.470
the horror he endured in the Shoah,
his mother murdered by the Nazis,

00:49:35.570 --> 00:49:39.070
and now he has to live through this,
his son's disappearance.

00:49:40.220 --> 00:49:41.850
His writing is impressive.

00:49:42.220 --> 00:49:46.670
Besides, he nourished himself...
I remember how he sat at the dinner table,

00:49:47.650 --> 00:49:52.800
he started to write, first with a pen
and then in his typewriter,

00:49:53.020 --> 00:49:53.870
Yeah.

00:49:54.000 --> 00:49:58.250
Covered with books, like...
he nourished himself with them,

00:49:58.370 --> 00:50:03.700
he always puts in philosophical phases,
and famous quotes,

00:50:04.100 --> 00:50:08.700
and it was like... "wow!"
like that famous letter we wrote to Videla,

00:50:10.650 --> 00:50:11.770
I always...

00:50:12.520 --> 00:50:18.870
I'm very sorry
you didn't get to meet him. Well.

00:50:19.200 --> 00:50:20.170
Anyway.

00:50:21.600 --> 00:50:22.520
Yeah.

00:50:24.100 --> 00:50:27.600
- There are many things to relate to.
- You're very like him. Very.

00:50:28.250 --> 00:50:29.400
Amazing.

00:50:31.220 --> 00:50:32.270
Anyway.

00:50:32.470 --> 00:50:40.470
There's something about the way he writes,

00:50:41.150 --> 00:50:46.400
and I take notice of that, like
"oh, look how much thought he put into it"

00:50:46.550 --> 00:50:51.300
You can tell every word was thought out,
analized, and it's...

00:50:52.550 --> 00:50:55.720
He worked on it in a literary sense.

00:50:55.750 --> 00:51:00.120
I mean... I relate to those things.

00:51:00.350 --> 00:51:04.100
- What did you feel reading this?
- I feel connected...

00:51:04.700 --> 00:51:11.970
Perhaps because he's not here
and imagination plays a larger role there,

00:51:12.170 --> 00:51:17.950
I feel more connected with the story
than with Grandma's testimony,

00:51:18.020 --> 00:51:22.100
that is more of an everyday thing,
because I listen to her,

00:51:22.400 --> 00:51:25.200
and spend time with her,
and she's always telling her story,

00:51:25.300 --> 00:51:28.270
and if there's a dinner
she's constantly telling us stories...

00:51:28.920 --> 00:51:34.370
She's very close. His absence,
instead, makes me connect with it,

00:51:34.470 --> 00:51:38.700
like, "what's his side of the story,

00:51:38.750 --> 00:51:41.500
that Grandma can't tell us about,
but it happened."

00:51:42.050 --> 00:51:43.180
In some way.

00:51:44.800 --> 00:51:54.870
"To live is to build future memories."
-- ERNESTO SÁBATO

00:52:03.600 --> 00:52:07.850
Look at Dad!
He was so handsome in this party.

00:52:08.600 --> 00:52:12.120
My husband didn't know how to dance,
but he danced with me anyway.

00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:17.170
I led him, making it seem
like he was leading me.

00:52:17.850 --> 00:52:20.420
And then women came to him,

00:52:21.050 --> 00:52:24.700
"Why don't you dance with me?"
"No, I don't feel like it."

00:52:24.900 --> 00:52:27.270
He was afraid of saying
he didn't know how.

00:52:28.920 --> 00:52:30.600
And after midnight...

00:52:32.300 --> 00:52:34.670
The fifteenth-birthday waltz.

00:52:34.950 --> 00:52:41.520
- You're waltzing with Dad there!
- Serious, because if he got distracted...

00:52:41.700 --> 00:52:43.920
- No, he was pretty good!
- Pretty good, yes.

00:52:43.970 --> 00:52:45.670
He danced pretty well.

00:52:45.700 --> 00:52:48.170
- Did you practice?
- Of course!

00:52:48.270 --> 00:52:50.920
- Was it normal to practice that, then?
- Yeah.

00:52:51.900 --> 00:52:54.050
He was so proud...

00:52:56.750 --> 00:52:57.800
Yeah, yeah.

00:53:00.800 --> 00:53:05.850
- Oh no, my God!
- Beno's looking sharp.

00:53:06.520 --> 00:53:07.620
Beno?

00:53:08.120 --> 00:53:10.470
- Yes.
- Yes, well, he was a good host.

00:53:12.100 --> 00:53:15.350
Look at dad with a cigarette,
did you see that, mom?

00:53:15.420 --> 00:53:18.550
Did you know that man in the middle?

00:53:18.570 --> 00:53:20.170
Smoking killed him.

00:53:20.320 --> 00:53:23.920
- Srulik lights up...
- He lights up dad's cigarette.

00:53:23.970 --> 00:53:25.620
So, they both died because of it.

00:53:25.770 --> 00:53:28.000
Both of them holding a cigarette.

00:53:28.150 --> 00:53:30.650
- And Dany? Did he smoke?
- No, he never did.

00:53:31.120 --> 00:53:35.370
- Dany was pretty small, he wasn't so big!
- He was always on the small side.

00:53:35.500 --> 00:53:38.600
- I mean you always describe him tall.
- No, he was always short.

00:53:38.670 --> 00:53:41.020
He was taller than dad.

00:53:41.200 --> 00:53:42.920
- OK.
- A little bit.

00:53:42.950 --> 00:53:44.370
But he wasn't very big.

00:53:44.450 --> 00:53:47.670
The Rus' Family never stood out
because of their stature.

00:53:47.820 --> 00:53:51.250
- OK. Neither did the Scheinkopfs.
- Neither did the Scheinkopfs.

00:53:53.420 --> 00:53:55.100
- Oh, God.
- Look at Dany!

00:53:55.220 --> 00:53:58.920
- See him biting his lower lip?
- Yeah, like a nervous tic.

00:53:58.970 --> 00:54:02.700
Like a tic, because he didn't
give a damn about any of this.

00:54:03.920 --> 00:54:08.350
This one! See that brunette
in the pink dress? She liked Dany.

00:54:09.150 --> 00:54:11.650
Mirta... I can't remember her last name.

00:54:13.500 --> 00:54:17.120
He was pretty successful with women.

00:54:18.670 --> 00:54:19.650
Really.

00:54:19.750 --> 00:54:20.700
He was cute.

00:54:20.750 --> 00:54:24.370
The neighboring moms
drove me crazy about him.

00:54:25.170 --> 00:54:27.570
Their daughters were in love...

00:54:27.900 --> 00:54:32.270
but didn't dare to say it,
so their mothers called me.

00:54:34.170 --> 00:54:36.650
Unbelievable.

00:54:41.850 --> 00:54:44.320
I'm dancing with Daniel...

00:54:45.270 --> 00:54:47.890
What do you feel, grandma?
Seeing Dany there?

00:54:48.200 --> 00:54:53.520
I feel like... like I can't breathe.

00:55:27.470 --> 00:55:32.250
I sometimes think about the uselessness
of memories that are put away so neatly.

00:55:36.500 --> 00:55:38.050
I don't know, I have them.

00:55:38.520 --> 00:55:41.320
When I'm gone all of this is going to...

00:55:46.550 --> 00:55:50.170
- No one will keep this.
- You think no one will keep it?

00:55:50.350 --> 00:55:51.350
What?

00:55:52.570 --> 00:55:55.700
I don't know what for,
but I always keep these things.

00:55:56.950 --> 00:56:03.220
These books by professor Jones,
who was crazy about Daniel.

00:56:03.820 --> 00:56:10.550
When he was 12 years old,
my son did a presentation with a... a...

00:56:10.820 --> 00:56:16.870
with a... how do you call it?
Like a folder. A huge presentation sheet,

00:56:17.520 --> 00:56:21.270
with the topic "The Atom and
the Atomic Sciences". Twelve years old.

00:56:22.420 --> 00:56:24.320
The Atom and the Atomic Sciences.

00:56:24.770 --> 00:56:30.350
All the older children,
from 5th and 6th grade came over,

00:56:30.570 --> 00:56:33.920
and the professor invited
all the teachers, too.

00:56:34.870 --> 00:56:39.020
So Daniel could do his presentation.

00:56:39.850 --> 00:56:41.270
They couldn't believe it.

00:56:41.820 --> 00:56:45.620
And in the end, he pursued a career
in physics and atomic sciences.

00:56:47.800 --> 00:56:51.100
And Daniel started to interest himself
in this since he was little.

00:56:51.250 --> 00:56:54.220
And he got into the Atomic Commission,

00:56:55.370 --> 00:56:56.820
He worked there.

00:57:01.300 --> 00:57:02.600
All that, and for what?

00:57:04.250 --> 00:57:06.870
26 years old. How unfair.

00:57:09.450 --> 00:57:13.400
But during those 26 years he lived,
he gave me so much joy...

00:57:13.560 --> 00:57:26.120
VICTIMS OF THE STATE TERRORISM
FROM OUR SCHOOL

00:57:26.520 --> 00:57:30.070
But... don't they talk about both of us
in the same way at home?

00:57:31.450 --> 00:57:39.250
No, I think that... Grandma's opinion
about Dany is very respected,

00:57:39.850 --> 00:57:46.370
and in this case, that's so recent
and you lived it, dad lived it...

00:57:46.670 --> 00:57:52.420
And there are many more
living people who can talk about it,

00:57:52.570 --> 00:57:56.450
no one talks about it anyway.

00:57:57.070 --> 00:57:58.500
As if...

00:57:59.300 --> 00:58:09.650
As if they stuck with the frozen image
of the one that's missing,

00:58:09.720 --> 00:58:16.470
and they don't challenge that view
with other perspectives,

00:58:17.220 --> 00:58:23.770
and it makes me wonder about this.
What other perceptions of Dany are there?

00:58:24.850 --> 00:58:30.550
Well, you know,
when grandma talks about Dany...

00:58:30.570 --> 00:58:31.620
Yeah, I know.

00:58:31.650 --> 00:58:34.420
She talks about a Dany that,
when they ask me,

00:58:34.420 --> 00:58:37.020
I feel like we remember
two different people.

00:58:39.950 --> 00:58:41.750
It's like that, I mean...

00:58:42.700 --> 00:58:44.700
You know,
Dany was a little taller than me.

00:58:45.770 --> 00:58:48.750
And to grandma, I feel like
he's getting taller and taller.

00:58:49.070 --> 00:58:51.700
I feel him bigger,

00:58:51.950 --> 00:58:56.000
heavier, like she's swelling
his image over time.

00:58:57.270 --> 00:59:00.800
He was always a smart kid,
but he's getting smarter and smarter.

00:59:00.820 --> 00:59:02.270
Grandma's speech is like...

00:59:03.020 --> 00:59:10.870
I always think about it,
and it surprises me, this thing...

00:59:11.500 --> 00:59:19.050
of wanting Dany to be the best student,
the University's brilliant mind,

00:59:19.120 --> 00:59:21.720
He was a smart kid, but...

00:59:22.200 --> 00:59:28.300
I have an image of Dany,
and it's not the same grandma has,

00:59:28.350 --> 00:59:32.950
the one she's been building
and rebuilding...

00:59:33.100 --> 00:59:36.000
He's bigger and better with time.

00:59:36.050 --> 00:59:39.570
She built it and she can't accept
it's different.

00:59:39.570 --> 00:59:41.820
- Right.
- That's very hard.

00:59:46.050 --> 00:59:52.670
What did you feel when you fought,
when you protested,

00:59:52.750 --> 00:59:56.600
when you marched down Plaza de Mayo,
or traveled around the world

00:59:56.620 --> 00:59:58.600
exposing initiatives and testimonies?

00:59:58.870 --> 01:00:03.250
What did you feel about
not being listened to

01:00:03.270 --> 01:00:07.370
by the judicial system
in your own country?

01:00:07.550 --> 01:00:11.200
And also, what did you feel
when that was finally possible?

01:00:13.700 --> 01:00:16.600
I'll give you a small bit of information.

01:00:19.100 --> 01:00:22.170
My husband got sick,

01:00:25.370 --> 01:00:28.250
in 1983.

01:00:31.450 --> 01:00:35.070
Before democracy was restored.

01:00:36.900 --> 01:00:38.670
Democracy is restored,

01:00:40.150 --> 01:00:41.670
he's very sick.

01:00:43.870 --> 01:00:45.250
And he says,

01:00:46.720 --> 01:01:00.200
"if six months into democracy don't bring
news about my son, my life is worthless."

01:01:01.600 --> 01:01:04.200
"I don't think I'll live six months."

01:01:04.800 --> 01:01:10.050
He gave himself six months to live
in democracy, and he died when they ended.

01:01:11.150 --> 01:01:13.400
Because he hadn't gotten news
about his son.

01:01:17.720 --> 01:01:19.270
We felt...

01:01:19.700 --> 01:01:21.150
I felt...

01:01:23.320 --> 01:01:25.220
abandoned.

01:01:27.920 --> 01:01:32.120
What happened with our children?
We didn't get an answer.

01:01:34.520 --> 01:01:36.700
And we're still waiting.

01:01:38.220 --> 01:01:41.570
Because there's some news
from time to time.

01:01:43.020 --> 01:01:44.620
Some pits...

01:01:45.150 --> 01:01:48.350
There were pits where they killed people.

01:01:48.920 --> 01:01:52.520
We'll never get back
the ones they threw down the river.

01:01:53.870 --> 01:01:55.600
But some bodies...

01:01:55.900 --> 01:02:00.420
If we could find at least some of them,

01:02:01.250 --> 01:02:03.170
so we could give them...

01:02:04.550 --> 01:02:06.350
a proper burial.

01:02:07.970 --> 01:02:09.450
Will we get to that?

01:02:25.670 --> 01:02:28.220
It was easy to find, if you must know.

01:02:28.270 --> 01:02:31.700
This Senku is really large
in my memory, on the table.

01:02:31.870 --> 01:02:37.150
Like a thing that was there
and I'd ask what was it,

01:02:37.350 --> 01:02:40.170
and you'd tell me it was Dany's.
Right? Something like that.

01:02:40.250 --> 01:02:43.670
Isn't it amazing that
there's no missing pieces?

01:02:44.000 --> 01:02:49.400
I remember having written
about this at some point...

01:02:50.550 --> 01:02:55.950
About how in this game there's also
an empty space in the middle, like...

01:02:56.850 --> 01:02:59.570
- air, emptiness, I don't know...
- A gaping hole.

01:02:59.700 --> 01:03:03.150
A gaping hole
related to the family history.

01:03:03.220 --> 01:03:08.670
And I thought about how sometimes
that prompts the memory,

01:03:08.820 --> 01:03:13.220
Actually it's like it is missing a piece,
if you ask me.

01:03:13.950 --> 01:03:19.770
It's missing a piece and everything
starts to move because of it.

01:03:20.100 --> 01:03:21.620
Yeah... Yes, yes.

01:03:22.220 --> 01:03:24.670
It's like... a different kind of missing.

01:03:25.220 --> 01:03:28.100
- Yeah...
- It's not the same if it's a death...

01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:33.700
than if it's a disappearance.
A disappearance invokes this feeling of...

01:03:34.800 --> 01:03:40.000
I don't know. I still feel...

01:03:41.220 --> 01:03:44.400
- You know...
- Yeah, that there's no body...

01:03:44.470 --> 01:03:51.270
There's no body and there's this fight
to recover the remains...

01:03:51.600 --> 01:03:54.420
I'm really struggling with that.

01:03:56.220 --> 01:04:00.550
There's so much work being done,
with the anthropologists, to recover...

01:04:00.700 --> 01:04:03.650
And the big question for me is...

01:04:04.770 --> 01:04:08.220
What would I do if the remains
are found, how would I feel?

01:04:08.370 --> 01:04:11.450
I mean, I want them to be found...

01:04:12.650 --> 01:04:16.700
But the remains are it,
they're evidence of...

01:04:17.550 --> 01:04:21.520
Even if one knows he won't
just show up, deep down it's like...

01:04:21.670 --> 01:04:25.970
The remains are it. They're the end.
They're closure.

01:04:25.970 --> 01:04:31.850
And many want that, closure.
I'm in terrible inner conflict.

01:04:33.820 --> 01:04:35.170
I don't know...

01:04:37.120 --> 01:04:39.050
It'll hurt me a lot, but...

01:04:39.500 --> 01:04:41.120
Perhaps it's necessary, I don't know.

01:04:41.970 --> 01:04:45.700
I don't know. It depends on how
each of us has buried him already.

01:05:08.970 --> 01:05:18.400
Like it happened with the Nazis,
wherever you end up we'll get you!

01:05:28.100 --> 01:05:37.000
Like it happened with the Nazis,
wherever you end up we'll get you!

01:05:47.870 --> 01:05:51.300
Mothers of the Plaza!
The people embrace you!

01:05:51.600 --> 01:05:54.850
Mothers of the Plaza!
The people embrace you!

01:05:55.000 --> 01:05:58.650
Mothers of the Plaza!
The people embrace you!

01:05:58.770 --> 01:06:02.120
Mothers of the Plaza!
The people embrace you!

01:06:05.300 --> 01:06:07.350
When does a "disappeared" die?

01:06:08.850 --> 01:06:10.970
I don't know. Perhaps never.

01:06:12.450 --> 01:06:16.950
Or should I turn the question around?
How long does he stay alive?

01:06:18.050 --> 01:06:21.270
They remain in a kind of time
outside of time.

01:06:25.470 --> 01:06:29.430
- Thank you.
- Thank you for being here with us.

01:06:32.060 --> 01:06:33.140
Thank you.

01:06:38.350 --> 01:06:39.520
Thank you.

01:06:39.800 --> 01:06:42.770
Can I take a picture with you?
You're a role model!

01:06:44.250 --> 01:06:46.270
- Thank you!
- There's no need.

01:06:49.770 --> 01:06:53.250
My husband helped me,

01:06:53.670 --> 01:06:57.420
because he let me go to Plaza de Mayo,
he let me do things.

01:06:57.450 --> 01:07:00.900
And he did things from home, too.

01:07:01.020 --> 01:07:04.500
He wrote letters to everyone
about what happened,

01:07:04.750 --> 01:07:09.650
About what happened to us
and about what happened to Daniel,

01:07:09.870 --> 01:07:12.270
Our story is twofold.

01:07:12.700 --> 01:07:16.950
And we have to bear with it,
we have to survive it.

01:07:18.070 --> 01:07:19.320
We have to.

01:07:19.820 --> 01:07:21.050
You know?

01:07:21.920 --> 01:07:23.900
That's what happens in life.

01:07:24.820 --> 01:07:29.270
So if some people tell me,
"OK, enough, stop talking,

01:07:29.500 --> 01:07:32.270
it's not important anymore.
You have other things now."

01:07:33.350 --> 01:07:36.970
I say to them, "everything is important.

01:07:37.320 --> 01:07:41.150
But memory is the most important thing."

01:07:43.050 --> 01:07:44.500
That's what I think.

01:07:45.020 --> 01:07:47.350
I always talk about life.

01:07:49.620 --> 01:07:55.950
If I live...
I deeply believe in human fate.

01:07:58.150 --> 01:08:02.570
Fate wanted me to live,
and there must be a reason for it, I did.

01:08:03.170 --> 01:08:06.870
I don't talk about it much,
but they tell me,

01:08:07.050 --> 01:08:11.800
"You're alive
because you have a mission."

01:08:13.250 --> 01:08:16.650
"It's a very important mission," they say.

01:08:17.570 --> 01:08:25.400
OK, but anyway, I don't think...
I think that survival in those cases...

01:08:26.450 --> 01:08:28.450
is just mere luck.

01:08:29.100 --> 01:08:35.850
- It's fate. I believe in fate.
- Yeah, there's no choice in the matter.

01:08:35.970 --> 01:08:42.220
That happened, it was fortuitous,
mere chance.

01:08:42.320 --> 01:08:48.250
Well, fortuitously I didn't get taken
to the ovens, and others were.

01:08:49.100 --> 01:08:53.270
So, like your grandma used to say,
"there's an angel protecting us."

01:08:53.570 --> 01:08:57.850
She liked to think that
there's an angel protecting us,

01:08:58.200 --> 01:09:04.050
so I, to appease her,
always used to say to her,

01:09:04.270 --> 01:09:09.070
"If you believe in an angel,
thank him for us still being around."

01:09:09.270 --> 01:09:10.550
Really.

01:09:11.020 --> 01:09:12.320
You see?

01:09:13.570 --> 01:09:16.900
So, it's mere chance.

01:09:17.300 --> 01:09:20.420
I believe in fate and in chance.

01:09:20.850 --> 01:09:25.950
We survived, and here we are,
telling the story.

01:09:27.420 --> 01:09:30.120
I always say that life is beautiful.

01:09:31.770 --> 01:09:34.320
And we have to learn to appreciate it.

01:09:36.000 --> 01:09:39.370
And how much life gave back to me.

01:09:40.250 --> 01:09:43.850
It gave me back my family.

01:09:45.170 --> 01:09:48.100
I have two granddaughters,

01:09:48.570 --> 01:09:50.500
and I get to be a great-grandmother.

01:09:51.100 --> 01:09:52.350
How about that?

01:09:54.150 --> 01:09:57.470
So, there's a force inside me,

01:09:58.620 --> 01:10:01.850
that even through everything,
I never give up.

01:10:03.170 --> 01:10:06.770
Wherever I'm called to,
I go to give my testimony.

01:10:07.670 --> 01:10:09.900
And I think my testimony...

01:10:11.050 --> 01:10:12.700
is very powerful.

01:10:14.020 --> 01:10:18.770
Because it's a double story,
very powerful,

01:10:19.500 --> 01:10:22.920
and people still ask me,
"How are you, how are you doing?"

01:10:24.200 --> 01:10:30.070
And it's this, "I try to remain strong
to pass it on to you,"

01:10:30.150 --> 01:10:31.850
I speak to the young people.

01:10:32.100 --> 01:10:34.170
Because there's so few of us left!

01:10:34.520 --> 01:10:37.050
There's not many of us left
to pass on the story.

01:10:37.800 --> 01:10:40.900
The few of us who remain try to do it.

01:10:41.600 --> 01:10:46.820
And I still feel, at my age,
pretty strong.

01:10:50.200 --> 01:10:58.400
I know that everything I said
and feel gets to your hearts.

01:10:59.250 --> 01:11:04.100
And my life, my entire life,
I live with joy.

01:11:04.150 --> 01:11:06.370
I live joyfully.

01:11:06.800 --> 01:11:09.950
Because I don't forget
what I've been through,

01:11:10.120 --> 01:11:13.100
but I pass on to the younger generations

01:11:13.800 --> 01:11:17.670
that there's a life,
and we have to fight for it.

01:11:18.100 --> 01:11:22.820
Now I'm waiting for twins
from my granddaughter.

01:11:23.020 --> 01:11:29.450
So, picture what it means to me
to receive another two lives...

01:11:29.770 --> 01:11:36.050
And I hope to be here still
and be able to receive them in my arms.

01:11:36.120 --> 01:11:37.320
Thank you.

01:12:00.750 --> 01:12:05.300
Two words stick with me
from my notebook, "exile" and "roots".

01:12:06.300 --> 01:12:11.300
Behind those words
there's a mix of textures, fibers, edges...

01:12:12.200 --> 01:12:16.180
Roots get destroyed and regrow,
branch out...

01:12:16.320 --> 01:12:21.000
They're alive, organic,
permanently exiled from themselves.

01:12:22.400 --> 01:12:26.430
And from exile one goes back
to one's roots, always in a different way.

01:12:26.470 --> 01:12:30.120
Towards new branches, broken,
supple or unknown.

01:12:31.800 --> 01:12:34.600
What is the precise distance
to the past?

01:12:36.520 --> 01:12:41.070
I don't know if it makes much sense,
but I can't refrain from asking.

01:13:28.146 --> 01:13:33.062
THE END

01:13:35.310 --> 01:13:39.810
MEMORY AND BEYOND