It seemed like a reunion of a chic college clique, the women gathered around Alicia Partnoy.
Partnoy, a 32-year-old writer and bookstore manager in Washington, D.C., is one of the few miracles to emerge from Argentina’s “dirty war,” an undeclared and relentless assault by the military in the late 70s against the country’s youth. Partnoy lived to tell her story of disappearance and survival and at least a few chapters from the stories of the more than 30,000 people estimated still missing.
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She has made it her business, in what has become a Jewish tradition for holocausts large and small, not to let anyone forget — not only by writing her memoirs of “‘the little school,” the ironically named concentration camp where she first served time, but also by testifying here and in Argentina to the horrors of the military junta’s regime. Her efforts so far have helped bring about the convictions of four Argentine generals.
No charges were filed, no trial was held. Partnoy was blindfolded for 20 days at a time. For whatever reason, she and her husband were not killed, but they were prisoners for two years.
They cut off my voice
so I grew two voices
