Slides from Wednesday, Jan. 24.
Read: Preface; Ch. 1-6, 10-13; Afterwords; Sources and Notes
Watch: Short video of sentencing at the 1985 trials
Consider at least one of the following questions in your post:
What archival questions do these “confessions” raise?
What do you notice about Scilingo’s use of language?
What is the role of Verbitsky in this story?
And check out the recent New Yorker article on Eva Schloss! The New Dimensions in Testimony exhibit is now open at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.
“Then the subversives were carried out like zombies and loaded on the airplane.” 22
This particular dialog with Scilingo about the his word and tense use is extremely interesting. The author pries by asking if Scilingo still sees these people and subversives. He says he does not. But I think this quote speaks to how much power the narrative that was being fed to him influenced his actions and perception of those actions. He says that he was describing the events in the context of their happening. I do not find it hard to believe that people could do these things. We have seen it throughout history as they are told that this is the right thing to do and rarely encounter opposing opinions. Scilingo says earlier in the book that he saw the flights as a fairly normal way of dealing with an enemy but later states that he thought there was better ways to go about it. I think to some extent it comes down to justifying actions to ones self. Its easier if you don’t question the authority. These is also often an aspect of erecting oneself and ones family. All in all I am impressed by Sailing’s initiatives to reveal the past once he had left the context of war. It is just so hard to actually put oneself in that mindset without expiring something similar.
Question: What are ways to incentivize people coming forward with the truth of historical events still getting some kind of justice? I feel like providing total immunity is too generous.
“Read it, but don’t worry about remembering the details. I’ll give you a copy. You’ll see that we did worse things than the Nazis” (Verbitsky, 7)
As the author writes, that is a very chilling line. However, I think that this line is incredibly illuminating of the situation that took place in Argentina during the “dirty war.” For example, the Argentinean government would take people and drug them and then throw them out of a plane into the cold waters of the Atlantic. Essentially it was the policy of the Argentinean government to systemically hunt down political dissidents, leftists and communists, and dispose of them. In total 30,000 people “disappeared” in Argentina’s war internal war against communism.
In regard to the language used by Scilingo I think it is well illustrated by his description of his memories from being aboard planes that dropped people into the ocean. For example, he refers to the people dropped from the plane in a number of ways. First, he calls them “subversives” then he calls them “terrorists” then he calls them “prisoners.” His whole description of the people seems to be void of any sense that they were in fact people. By using political terms to describe them they remain just adversaries to the regime and not people.
Question- is a comparison to Nazis a dangerous comparison?
“The term ‘disappeared’ is unacceptable to me, and on top of that it falls on my shoulders. Because I didn’t make anyone disappear, nor did anyone else in the navy. In a war, the enemy was eliminated; it could also have been done by shooting them. Who has made them into ‘the disappeared’? Those who have the responsibility for the leadership of the navy and the government.” (35)
This quote illuminates the way Scilingo utilizes language. At first, he makes a completely valid and important point in distinguishing between the word “disappeared” and the word “eliminated.” Disappeared implies someone gone missing, likely as a result of their own actions. Eliminated, however, is an action done unto someone by another person. Scilingo is certainly admitting to wrongdoing in making this distinction, it seems, until he goes on to place the blame solely on the shoulders of the leadership of the navy and the government. It is as if he has a knack for catching himself before he reveals too much.
Does a journalist interviewing someone with such a history as Scilingo’s have an obligation to work to get certain statements or answers out of the subject?
“In their unconscious state, the prisoners were stripped…Then we started to lower the subversives through there” (Verbitsky 49).
Scilingo at this point in the interview is finally opening up to Verbitsky about what really happened on the planes. He has an immensely difficult experience telling this part of the story because it is gruesome and brings back horrifying memories. It is interesting to see that when he talks about his experience during these trips, he returns to his habit of speaking of the victims in vulgar terms. Even though he clarifies earlier in the interview that he now sees these people as humans, Scilingo still uses words such as “prisoners” and “subversives” without a second thought and this speaks to what frame of mind he had when he participated. It shows that when he was helping perform these acts as a soldier he believed his superiors when they were saying that they were doing the right thing. He believed that these were terrorists who needed to be executed in what he thought was the most “Christian” way possible. This also shows that he has to harden himself when returning to his past because otherwise, he would not be able to explain why he participated without protest.
Question: When either perpetrators or victims have a hard time talking about their past, how will an archivist be able to tell how much of the story they are getting and whether or not they are missing any essential parts to it?
Before I get into my discussion post proper, I have a question that was raised by this reading, which is a translation of another text. How do archivists archive translations? Do they get put right next to the originals? Do they get put in a separate box marked “TRANSLATIONS”? Are duplicate copies of the translations made so that they can be put in both of these places? I really wish that I had asked the archivist at the Holocaust museum what filing system he used for the translations of the letters that we read.
Quote: “Scilingo said nothing that was not already known, but the words of an executioner admitting to his crimes in the first person had an extraordinary impact, as if the exhibition of Scilingo’s tormented soul were necessary to put an end to the two different versions of Argentine history in circulation, so that the narrative of the victims would cease to be that of pariahs and madmen and become the common sense of society.”
I always unapologetically pride myself, for better or for worse, on my ability to be as objective and emotionally detached as possible when it comes to academic activities. With that said, I have to admit that this passage was legitimately hard to read, perhaps more so than even the most graphic recountings of bloodshed and torture to which I have ever had the displeasure of bearing witness. In this paragraph alone, there are an incredible number of thematic elements at play. At the forefront, there is a man–Scilingo–who is now thankfully locked up in a prison somewhere in the Spanish countryside, who sat down and talked about what would be tried as his thirty-something crimes against humanity. I think that this text does an excellent job of detailing the social significance of the “exhibition of Scilingo’s tormented soul” (not the words I would use) as it pertains to the validation of narratives of unbelievable suffering, but I keep finding myself circling back to the reason behind this historical revelation.
Is it really that important to have a first-person account, if that person has gone out of his or her way to demonstrate some of the worst that humanity has to offer? Argentinians who wanted to know what had happened had already found out for themselves: By the book’s own admission, Scilingo didn’t say anything new, and yet the wave of change washed over Argentina as a result of Scilingo’s retelling of old news. I think that it would be really interesting to take a closer look at the social precedence for huge change being brought about by a new talking head saying old words.
Also, I feel as if this text as a whole raises an archival question. How would it be dated? Obviously, the book was published in 2005. So I guess it would go in a filing cabinet marked “2005.” Is publication the only metric by which we should categorize our books and articles? Wouldn’t it also make sense to put it in with other primary sources, presumably from the twentieth century? Surely, the interviews recounted in this book have historiographical value comparable to a number of other documents–newspapers, memos, transcripts–that would unquestionably wind up in a special collections room dealing with ephemera.
“Cortàzar said he did not write the story because he found out it had already been written by the book of history. But in a fantastically Cortazarian denouement, history rewrote it fifteen years later” (Verbitsky 142).
In terms of having access to a confession, this quote stood out to me because it is the testimony that allows us both sides of the story, which in turns leads to even more fantastical scenarios that could hypothetically be spun into fiction. In the archive, I think confessions force us to warp our perception of what happened (it seems to me that in so many instances, due to power structure or general loss over time, we typically only have on side per story, and are forced to consult marginalia or periphery documents for the other). Furthermore, I think “confessions” in the archives force us to reckon with our understanding of truth. One of my favorite history books was also born of the discovery of a confession/trial record (Natalie Zemon Davis’s “The Return of Martin Guerre”), and in that instance, it forced the author to confront the fantastical in the same way this confession does. Confessions, because they are so full and well documented, give rise to accounts that are almost stranger than fiction, except they aren’t, because they are the truth.
The interaction of history and fiction also comes into question with he revelation of confession or trial records, but via other archival material, as well. I thought this quote was of particular importance because it displays not only an implicit interest in history, but also the belief that history as it happened could not be interesting for a book, rather, the author is forced to make things up. I am again reminded of “The Return of Martin Guerre,” where the truth was even more bizarre than something I could ever dream up. It is a dangerous misconception that history can only be interesting if it is untrue. What initially made me interested in history enough to study it was thinking about the fact that people are people and have been that way for millennia. In other words, the human brain hasn’t evolved to the point where human emotions and feelings in 1000BCE would be unrecognizable to us. It’s a shame that we still believe that the truth is too boring for “historical fiction,” and an even bigger shame that despite interest in history, there are so few “historical fiction” books that live up to historical accuracy.
Question: What is the role of the historian in making history interesting?
“He also let it be known that no one in the military had been able to keep his hands clean, because the navy rotated all officers through the different task forces.”
How much blame can we place on obedient soldiers? Yes, these young men had the option to deny an performing an atrocious act, but with what consequences? In the realm of psychology, it has been seen that the majority of people will follow orders from an authoritative figure, whether or not they agree with those orders. So, if this quality comes from human nature, and these soldiers did not come up with the original order, how much blame can be assigned to them? Clearly, they cannot just walk off scott-free, but the lens from which they are punished must be appropriate to the context.
Question: How have they handled these cases in the past? Has it changed depending on who is involved and what crimes were committed?
Quote: “Special military operations… were being planned in order to meet the demands of a fight against an unforeseen enemy in which standard operating procedures would prove inapplicable” (18)
Comment: Verbitsky uses an interesting technique at the start of his interview with Scilingo. Scilingo first wants to make a list of questions to prepare for the interview but Verbitsky immediately hits record and asks straight-off-the-bat “How did the orders to throw defenseless prisoners into the ocean come to you?” I wonder how much different interviewing techniques like these alter the interviewee’s testimony. Verbitsky may have thought that by not allowing Scilingo to prepare for the interview, he could generate the most raw, honest, and useful testimony. Also, this technique prevents Scilingo from thinking too extensively about the ways in which he could present his own actions in the least egregious way. I wonder why Verbitsky did not start the interview asking questions about background information to establish the setting and relevant events for his testimony. Also, by asking background information first, Verbitsky could potentially have built up more trust with his interviewee than he would otherwise have.
Question: Is learning how to interview someone taught in archival science?
In Scilingo’s “confessions” he seems very intent on explaining how such atrocities could be committed so willingly. He stresses the influence of the system–of the navy as a sort of machine under which one would become, out of ambition, hopeful trust, or emotional necessity, a willing cog. He attempts to explain how, even as humans, people could commit horrific acts. From his accounts, particularly in describing how the Church’s blessing was gained for its supposedly painless murders, it does seem that the navy went to great lengths to compel their workers to kill. In a way, Scilingo’s confessions to me almost seem a method of reconciling the concept of inherent human goodness with his past. Or maybe such mass killings are dependent on a structural developer of willing violence. Scilingo does not describe any joy with his work in the plane, or any satisfaction. So who was? Regardless of whether it was Scilingo’s rank superiors or peers or employees, when Scilingo went up in the plane, it seems from his description that he was pretty much free. Sometimes a higher ranking official would come to oversee the work, but otherwise? and even so? He was thousands of feet above the ground but he was still under their control.? (And I don’t know whether to end that previous sentence with a period or a question mark.)
“’The armed forces weren’t the only ones responsible. A large part of the country consented to the barbarities that were being committed.’
‘How was that consent expressed?’
‘I don’t think society acted out of terror. I think that it appealed to the armed forces or that it backed what they did.'” (Verbitsky, Chapter 3).
I want to consider the question of what archival questions do these “confessions” raise, specifically in response to this hard third and fourth chapter detailing the events regarding the death flights from ESMA. Can we rely on archives to either confirm or deny what the naval officer claims? Can archives speak to a societies motivation behind this so-called societal “consent”? If so, what type of archive? Can oral histories reliably be used to either confirm or deny these claims of why the Argentine public supposedly turned a blind eye? Or would those results be skewed? Is it human nature to want to describe in retrospect oneself as having acted out of terror rather than acceptance of human rights abuses as they were happening? Is ephemera from the time more useful in understanding the reality of protests, or lack thereof? Can ephemera give us a glimpse to motivation, especially if studied in mass?
I suppose it might not matter in history why the society was not able to precent more human rights abuses, merely that they couldn’t. But curiosity, sociology, and for the betterment of societies and military trust moving forward, it would be an interesting study. But I wonder how archives could be used in order to discuss the societal reasoning.
“Today I’m telling you that it was a barbaric thing. At that time we were totally convinced of what we were doing. The way we had internalized it, with the situation we were living through in this country, it would be a total lie if I told you that I wouldn’t do it again under the same conditions” (23)
I believe that the narratives of those involved in the heinous acts of war have stories that are integral to the archive. While one may question these discoveries that the enemy, at one time at least, speaks of, Scilingo has no reason to lie. While his truth may be painful and hard to understand, it is an often unheard side of many tragedies. The excerpt above shows that, although Scilingo committed horrible atrocities, that he is still human. He still knows right from wrong and has regrets for his actions. However, he is also able to identify the root of what led him to be in the position he was during the war. This information is far more important than the detailed tortures that he speaks of. Because he can identify what led him to morph into an emotionally removed, trained killer, scholars and those who listen to his story are able to see the signs of this kind of act before it begins. Throughout this book, one is able to see, in a way, why Scilingo committed the act he did and how he feels about these actions now. If you were directly involved in this war, had loved ones who disappeared, would you want to hear his story? How would his explanations make you feel? Would these details give you closure? Or further remove you from your trust in humanity?