I want to share someone with you.

His name is Oscar Lautaro Hueravilo. My advisor had set up an interview with him for yesterday at 7:30 at the Café de las Madres. Yesterday, I ran off the subway, got to the café, ordered a tea and quickly scribbled some notes. A few minutes later he walked into the café smiling; an older man with a bright red scarf and black moustache. I waved him over- he had no idea who I was, as we had never met before! He greeted me with 2 kisses on the cheek and sat down across from me. It was the easiest beginning to an interview I have ever had. He eased my nerves immediately and brought out a newspaper from his bag. There was a small picture in the bottom corner of two people, with 70s hair and black and white features. The man had the same moustache and features as Oscar.
“This is my son and my daughter-in-law” he told me.
I knew what happened to them. The picture was like so many pictures fathers and mothers here carry with them. Oscar and Mirta, the faces in the picture are 2 of the 30,000 people who “disappeared” during the dictatorship. Two people whose families are still waiting to find out what happened to them… two people whose crime was nothing more than being young and having dreams. He was 22, she was 23. He was studying to be a lawyer, was the president of the student Communist organization. She was a teacher, who loved Italian, English, and French. They had been together for 8 months and she was 6 months pregnant with their first child.
Their picture was in the paper because it was 30 years ago from Saturday that military men, dressed in civil clothes bombarded their apartment, bringing them both to the ESMA, the most notorious concentration camp/torture center in Buenos Aires. It’s been 30 years since Oscar has seen his only son.
Something so difficult to deal with, to process, is how the dictatorship took control of the Argentinean youth, of the future. How they ripped apart families, marriages, an entire country. I don’t have any children but I cannot imagine the feeling of losing your child to the government of your country; of the hope, the waiting, the despair, and the denial you must go through.
There are 500 cases of either pregnant women or children who disappeared during this time. We know now that most babies born in the ESMA or other places of detention were given to military families who couldn’t have children of their own. There is an organization of grandmothers who have fought for 30 years to find their own grandchildren, to reclaim those whose identities have been completely rearranged.
Mirta was 6 months pregnant- four months after she was taken away, a baby appeared at a hospital in Buenos Aires. Hidden in the baby’s clothes and blankets, as well as inside of a doll the hospital workers found a little paper with the name Emiliano Hueravilo. The baby also had a little mark on his ear that had been made with a pin. With these clues, the nurses were able to identify Emiliano as Oscar’s grandchild and in an act that you could call miraculous, Emiliano was returned to his paternal grandparents. Now Emiliano is 30, and his grandfather couldn’t be prouder of him. He is the first of 82 grandchildren who have been recovered.
I spent 40 minutes talking to his grandfather, originally Mapuche from Chile- a man who has fled Chile & Argentina- who suffered so much because of his work with work unions. The right to decent work is a human right, he has spent his life working to improve and uphold this basic human right.
This 74 year old man had more life in him than I can possibly express. After telling me his story he asked me about my family, what are their names, what are they like, what are your little siblings like? He gave me his phone number, we are going to keep in touch aren’t we? Do you have a camera, I want to remember you. He walked me to the subway stop and waited until I bought my ticket to leave, waving to me the whole time. It would take him an hour and a half to get back home. Its been a pleasure knowing you, he said.
Oscar loves to dance, he loves to spend time with his friends, drink mate. Oscar has suffered a lot of hurts but he doesn’t ever forget how lucky he is. I didn’t want to leave; I wanted to express how much one hour talking with him had affected me. I wanted to thank him, hug him, call my grandparents; I wanted to never forget how lucky I am.