The Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (AIPR) commemorates March 24 as Argentina’s Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice (Día de la Memoria por la Verdad y la Justicia). This day, an annual public holiday throughout Argentina, serves as an official remembrance of the period of state-sponsored terror that occurred during the military dictatorship between the years 1976 and 1983.
The annual Day of Remembrance is an opportunity to commemorate and honor the memory of everyone whose lives were forever changed by the murders, tortures, and disappearances carried out during the cruel dictatorship. The date, March 24, coincides with the initiation of the coup d’etat in 1976, which installed the military junta that would be responsible for approximately 30,000 forced disappearances over the following 7 years.
To mark the occasion, a diverse group of organizations and individuals, led by the Madres and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo), gather in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires to demonstrate. As part of the annual commemoration, many display photographs of friends or family members who were disappeared as part of the dictatorship’s terror. The demonstration also calls for continued investigations into the circumstances surrounding those whose fate remains unknown as well as the further strengthening of government policies protecting human rights.
Today, the Auschwitz Institute commemorates the disappeared and all of those who fell victim to the military dictatorship’s reign of terror in Argentina. AIPR commends the continued efforts of groups such as the Madres and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo in seeking justice and accountability for the atrocities that took place. The Auschwitz Institute would also like to highlight the continued political will made evident by the countries that make up Latin America towards strengthening human rights in the region by advancing measures for truth, justice and memory through participation in initiatives such as the Latin American Network for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention.