“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
- Proverbs 13:12
The Nuremberg trials after the Second World War have hopefully left an indelible mark on the collective memory of humanity, not only because they punished Nazi war criminals, but because they brought to light the details and the extent of their crimes. Their abhorrent deeds were disclosed by thousands of probative documents and testimonies. The Nazis had tried to conceal their inhumane actions by means of enormous mass graves in hidden places, by destroying the bodies of their victims, and by demolishing the machinery of the death factories they had erected. By holding the perpetrators accountable, the trials served as a warning to anyone who might insanely dream of imitating such actions and as a perpetual warning for all of humanity to remain vigilant since nefarious desires can lie dormant in people’s hearts.
The trials of the military personnel responsible for atrocities committed during the dark years of the National Reorganization Process in Argentina have certain similarities to the Nuremberg trials. Here, too, evidence about the crimes that had been committed was destroyed, corpses were made to disappear, and the infamous behavior of those who ruled the country with pride and ignominy for seven years was eventually revealed.
In the 1990s, two vicious bombing attacks shook all of Argentina. In the first, the embassy of the State of Israel was smashed to its foundations. In the second, the building that housed the central institutions of the Jewish community was demolished. To the present day, neither of these mass murders has received justice. After the massive amount of evidence and testimony that was accumulated over many years of fruitless investigation, the silence that still prevails shreds the minds and hearts of those committed to justice. Only through justice, applied uniformly in all areas of life, will Argentina find a path of redemption.
As long as the fateful facts are not brought to light, the reprehensible motives of the perpetrators lie unrevealed, and the identities of those who locally abetted the execution of these crimes remain unknown, a sense of impunity will fester, undermining all respect for justice. The murdered will continue to cry out from their tombs. And discontent will hold captive the hearts of everyone who dreamed and continue to dream of Argentina as a “new glorious nation”.