In a minute memories must be kept alive otherwise theyll be extinguished like the flame of a candle. Remembering needs pictures words what is who isnt but if you dont know me but that is why they made them disappear my father aufidius brother and so many others to wipe out all trace of their struggles as if theyve never existed as if theyd never been here among us in the sunni communities function engineers. From one nine hundred sixty to one nine hundred ninety six what amala was subjected to the worst repression in latin American History thousands of people were murdered or disappeared in two thousand and twelve a group of citizens who had taken their case to the interim Merican Court of human rights obtained a judgment against the state of guatemala as part of their compensation the families requested that a documentary be made and financed by the guatemalan government the state failed to comply with the ruling and the point came when the families were no longer willing to wait this is their documentary and the three women gamers in the delivery van arrived and thanked them in fifty a thick yes they had planned it all carefully and now you want to live. A block off the road and drove a white van into the door to gain access to the apartment. For months and out them being a few climbed up this window great and what i am being is that only one of them is well. This is the room i showed you when we were by the street a tin roof covered most of the courtyard and this is the door i was talking about. Those people sitting you know they came over the roof jumped down where the pipe is and let the others here. And then some rushed into the rooms where we were. Others went straight to my brothers room and kicked in the door. And becoming. That is that what then we heard a shot fired the bullet hit the corner over there. Sorry for asking but did you see him being physically abused did you hear him shout or scream. Or you must be healed but yes we did because back then there was only a curtain where that door is now you know all of them therefore i know. Someone outside gave an order to bring me out they thought we had weapons and i was supposed to show them where they were buried among the. Ng is a moment youll send me. I went outside and saw my father digging a hole. You know you. Know up by the basketball they thought thats where the weapons were. But i knew nothing about that so i couldnt tell them anything. Yeah yeah a moment until finally. When i was outside i saw a man standing next to the kitchen upstairs hes the one whod sussed out the layout of the house i mean in leveling. Do you have any sense you know some years later your neighbor who lives opposite my mother said that she was on her way to do some shopping that morning and she saw two men grabbed my brother as he was coming out of the house. Theyd been waiting by the door. That usually those people would return later to wreck the apartment and if they discovered anyone there theyd take them away to go thats why we left the house quickly on the grounds of quitters it with your parents there when they took sergio oh yes. Yes my mother and father were also there when sergio was abducted with. Each of them being the did your parents try to find him i. Mean thats a difficult subject it was really hard on them i think every mother who has gone through it has. Acted in a similar way including my mother. In italy they get up in the morning and say i dreamt overlander or i dreamt of said geo or i dreamt that or someone might say i think i saw him in the street and i go. To this but it wasnt him. It wasnt him but thats the only way he was ever mentioned again. Otherwise the subject was to boo. Internet speed isnt used in a good recipe those were the worst years of the civil war which devastated the country the police and the army were fighting against the guerillas thousands of people were abducted forty five thousand around the whole country forty five thousand and those are just the ones who disappeared another two hundred thousand died the population of guatemala was eight million at the time they need and pointed out to me unity and it was the most brutal repression of a people ever endured in latin america you know i mean. How do you doing as you were here a lot back then i already see me at home i mean yes yes with my family usually with my brother to see whether our brother rubin was amongst the bodies that were brought here marked double x. In other words the nameless look at the past we saw a lot of people here and look to the lot of bodies of a more cohesive your most often run into other relatives especially in love of being in a cemetery he. Is where most of the murder victims were taken us is he now. Little you recognized many of the dead we see and then you also know i want this it was so painful i came for about six months and then could no longer bear to look at the terrible things they had done to people some of the victims had cuts on their feet cut so finely were probably made with a razor blade. The halles media was the. Salton lenin had been rubbed into the womb see this it was horrifying i sent. The hmong also. The flame consumed and the most harrowing thing of all though im unable to get it out of my head was a couple. They were said to be engaged. Navios. Well. Done if they were students at San Carlos University and she was pregnant but it is time but as our senior babble. I downloaded somebody told us that when they were found the babys head was in its mothers stomach that they knew more. Then two or they would be in. Full Solidarity Group of acquirement to a was founded around then the name means mutual aid we met at the morgue each of us alone to face the atrocities and fear we needed one another in this group we women tried in our own way to do something to see our missing fathers brothers sons and husbands again but if you. Didnt think all who knew the change you know since the founding of our organization on june the fifth one nine hundred eighty four we have been calling on the transitional military government to provide information on the whereabouts of hundreds and hundreds of guatemalan citizens the. Children many of whom were undoubtedly abducted under the regime of gen me if you are victorious and me here is. What we have experienced and attempted since then defies description the reaction from government spokespersons to questions regarding all those who have disappeared is disrespectful and deplorable we cannot accept their contemptuous and completely improbable responses. Afy mantillas the somebody feels they claim that the missing have left the country or joined the girl years. Ago how could they know that what proofs. They have. Will they want to. Know believe me the people of guatemala we cannot allow these in cid us crimes to go unpunished. That they do seem via appia we urgently call upon you to join our fight for the Immediate Release of abducted guatemalan citizens and for an end to the killing and all forms of violence that violate Human Dignity in the land even without whom i am so and by the two hundred twenty five families which constitute up or you moved to so that our sons husbands fathers and brothers might be returned to as a life. The objections continued indiscriminately the army took away and killed anyone they suspected of thinking differently irrespective of whether they were a guerrilla or not the day after day more and more people came to help we are much well and asked for help in their search for relatives who had disappeared but. One lawyer got most of us and we first came here ten years ago this was a horrible place dirt floor pitch black we put the lights in and the individual rooms were shocking. They were small and had no light or windows. And the doors were just grills. And not industrial grills but homemade want to. Even see how it goes where the grill showed that Political Prisoners were kept here and what is also shocking is that over the last ten years we have found no indication whatsoever of someone having survived captivity here in la. Not a single person. To move this but we learned later that there were a lot of these secret prisons in which the police and army had people disappear but when we questioned them they denied it. They look at but that we know very little about what happened in these places and. When they sent these when de santis or was held at this Police Station which still exists today i mean. That would be my luck. The last time i so hope was on march the eighth one thousand nine hundred full International Womens day now that im here one though. Yes well doused when a group of soldiers burst into our apartment and forced my brother and me to watch as they talked shit. Out of put out i am i dont know. They pulled out her fingernails one by one with pliers. Only gals have it and we had to watch. Is a sunless not matter what a scale those of my last memories of when they seized my mother they also arrested my brother and me and took us to the National Police department on the avenue. They had the torture continued we was subjected to electric shocks on to new lessons in the. Sins haply we had to watch as our mother was also tortured in the same way we mostly house her lack. Of money madeleine the enemy the last word she was able to say to his work and be strong be strong with them where this sampling. Of korea mature became increasingly important journalists abroad began to take an interest in us and our struggle in the cause of those who had disappeared but if you feel any end even general may he have it taught us what amount of military dictator had to receive us back is represented in the barbaric repression unleashed by the army and other organizations no one will save the general began to officially accuse a poor motto. Is all written in english and sent from washington by one of these international totalitarian organizations be it Amnesty International or americans watch they are the ones that you know the Mutual Support Group what do you do when i base and their instructions from washington d. C. Yeah in another way if there is an america i watch which you can see what good is a little bit of an interview in it gets used in a really deep in with a. In april the first month energy for something happened which we could do for you would. Be to lose a leader or pull your moto character gomas colleague was murdered. Little money off of a counter his tongue the message was clear. And use a moment of his own that must but the devil we knew then that we were not safe that something could happen to us at any time i think it was at the cemetery that rosario took the megaphone and said that she wasnt afraid that she would defy head towards killers usually in his arms young souls i was also says. She was truly courageous a real fighter but we were afraid i still remember how he talked about it short of the oh god now its our turn what are we going to do to you at last about us whatever you want to go up i sat for he know that beauty comply as a mother you must have been worried about me or me i have visibility and i think up on the in one thousand nine hundred five things got steadily worse i wanted to take you to your grandfathers. It was a route i drove every day that particular day on our way there i saw three cars and ten or eleven armed men on the hill leading to less precise is when suddenly they pointed to me got into their cars and came after me i drove faster and faster at turning left and right and wherever possible i went down narrow streets when i arrived fortunately your grandfather was standing by the gate this is only i shouted at him to open up which the poor chap did immediate that i drove in and right to the back where he kept to see i was so scared that held you tight got out of the car and hid in the bedroom is that in a lot of him if he has been there what about you hear me now they are going to kill us i thought and yet i had promised your father that i would. After your visit is a moment the place. Where. We seemed not to be winning we seemed to be losing after all we had already lost. Back then in the week before easter weve still been consoling and encouraging one another then already called me to say that rosario had disappeared but is. Even. Going to take their little boy had diarrhea and so she had gone to buy some athletes the child and her brother were in the car with her. Is in the wet on the this is where the alleged accident happened but there was no accident or what really happened is that they murdered rosario her child and her brother. They tortured the infant horribly they burned him and ripped out his fingernails and he was just a two year old little boy absolutely barbaric. And they tortured rosarios brother not to mention rosario herself they really made them suffer all three of them. So rosarios death was a clear direct message to them it was a serious blow to the entire Solidarity Group many of us went into hiding i hid in order to protect you but each one of us only wanted to get somewhere safe after rosarios death of who you know much will was no longer the same we fought on or at least we try to but not like we had done before but still despite everything we did try. In exile is commonly actually living this is where his bed was all your. Own after it happened i spent a lot of time here i knelt and said the rosary it will give you. All i wanted was for my son to be alive for him not to be tortured while here you invoke and i had the feeling that the only way i could enjoy it all was by opening my heart to the lord and the virgin mary i never stopped believing not even when they told me my son would not be coming back but until his body is found i said there is still hope surely with the new technology thats available they must be able to find something something that will help me like a sign perhaps or a word it would be a day passes without me asking mr godly when i can i go out into the yard or two or three in the morning and pray to the lord please give me an answer i cant endure your silence any longer please look at me i feel im going to cry again but the tears never come give me an answer lord you give others amounts so why not me all i want is for my son to have a home to live in a roof over his head a bed where he can rest and a table he can sit and eat it have on their. New finished get a piggy we have to cling to Little Things like photographs. Because their disappearance is an attempt to obliterate them as though they had never existed as though there had never been people who wanted to change this country i dont believe people will say that it seems like its impossible to change it really and its an attempt at obliteration which extends into their private lives and into ours and to those of the survivors and to those of their relatives even to the memories we perhaps still have of them. Who what were they like how did they live before someone tried to obliterate them. And this does happen we had a special relationship with our father he was a tall man is he i thought. It was time which was what i liked his moustache his beard he was big and had adult complection i got my complexion from him and. When they abducted my father murdered him i was in a state of shock for a whole year. Its like its hard to describe the has always been this hand that youve been able to hold and suddenly its taken away from you you know it was an incredible shock when that hand was taken away. And even today i am in need of my fathers advice and i need orientation and i still need things that no one else can give me and if you even believe. Youve been so can you but i believe that my father finds a million ways and moments to be with me he companies me along my path is the company. That is yet in me and it seemed like there was nothing more we could do it was as if our every attempt to learn something about those who disappeared hit a wall of silence until nine hundred ninety nine that is when the deity or military the military log book appeared. In the log book league guatemalas military secret service recorded information on people who between one thousand eighty three and one thousand eighty five under general asco home bateau makiya victorious were arrested in abducted by state officials in. One thousand nine hundred nine and member of the army stole this list from the Army Archives and handed it over to a civilian he didnt give the most important part of the military logbook consists of a record of state activities in which it contains the names of one hundred eighty three persons along with the date and location of their abduction another date indicates the day on which the detainees was moved to. Another secret Service Facility or was released in most cases the follows the code three hundred or say a lowly eval poncho poncho took him away that meant death or execution must be apart from our notices the diorio millets are is the only document which proves that the abductions were the work of the army in the police force you. Give them a part of the record is also devoted to the aquarium otoh it contains the names of those relatives of the leaders of our group who disappeared the result is husband my brother. Of failures brother powerless father. And in the purpose of this code is to dehumanize them to deprive them of any form of selfdetermination thats why codes were used in the local it was probably the same for every family when the newspaper published the list of names my mother immediately took me somewhere else the old fear i had returned your book about his illness and the star norm is a video you can only ever mean will need to fully question the list was published in the sunday edition of a national newspaper. On the i mean you are like us are you someone came to our house and said look your husbands name is in the paper yeah really when they see him it gets old a million newspapers were all tucked away in our house my family just didnt want to know my father was the only one who looked at the list but then it was get rid of it were not going to discuss the matter all the act on the one hand there was pain anguish and tears on the other hand though we were glad that at long last we were learning something about our family members whether we might discover their mortal remains or we even find out they were still alive. And i was the wearing of the laureus the horse and im the one in service to him alone the good thing in our case was that fathers photograph and his personal details were printed in the news. Paperless we relatives finally knew for certain something that wed always known but had never wanted to accept at least not until we saw the body in front of us from. Only someone from the military who told my parents i didnt see him myself that when they began to torture him they not all his teeth out with a hammer that is how i know that they tortured him for a long time to try and extract information from him the man said they only stopped when their victims were nothing more than a vestige of a human being the last thing they did was gather their eyes out. When we read said gios name in the newspaper we knew it was time to abandon all hope since then we only refer to them as devils murderers and swine as it seemed they were actually else. Who sees it. It is of course painful to look through the log book its pages demonstrate how much these people who wanted to change the country suffered. But it is also about our relatives and about revealing parts of our history like little and yes its a lot of my ideas but theyre there and at the same time we have first hand proof in the form of a document we can take to a judge and say here is the proof what more do you need to. Get. Thanks to the d r e o merely town and we were able to bring the first legal actions but the military denied everything and the judges were still afraid not one person was found guilty but then in two thousand and five an incredibly important discovery was made earlier i feel that there athir the Public Prosecutors Office for human rights decided to have this building investigated a delegation arrived and came down here just like we are doing that when he glanced up at the windows a deliberate as if went to his source stacks of documents piled up thousands and thousands of them and when he asked the state employee responsible for them what they were its the Police Archives she said as it actually was up on the scene. Yes. Its all natural gas well it was a lucky break and an unbelievably important one for so many years we had had no idea this is where the National Police archive was his know what it was a key moment because it marked the start of this story. And yet when the peace treaties was signed theyd also denied that an archive even existed. Times. As for lead to get rid of all of it back then when the government was toppled they used this building as a secret prison like that that best of. Them are saying on well in the archives we found more than six thousand documents which relate to what is recorded in the the ario military argue. It with you that is for the lowliest the animals if they confirm the accuracy of the information contained in the log book but i think reality the acts of violence carried out by the police are also documented even sealing animals more loved ones meaning in of immediate in this is a just opinion when someone was abducted and taken away witnesses would take note of the vehicles number plate and know that only one they will likely take with them the same way again was probably was what we have here are ledgers which list those vehicles that were taken to a workshop for maintenance or repair and those number plates that were noted down also appear in these vehicle lists one field and this proves that the vehicle in which someone was abducted belonged to the National Police force so the state police were responsible that was the first episode. Because well here in every state Police Activity was documented they even took the trouble to include a summary of the respective report in the entry for each individual these entries usually include the name a few dates the document number the designation of the Government Organization involved and a summary of the report from in vitro on it thats the general who goes on the basis of these personal records we have drawn up a data bank with one point two million names. In your door saying your system will have. A population of guatemala and the seventys and eightys. Thats around eight million and assume that half the people were minus five that means that the state Police Registered and monitored more than one quarter of all adults in this country on somebodys mother even be singable simple little bit like. Only that what i book the deity on military was published in one thousand nine hundred ninety one plus what was finale up on the i was in the area also by two thousand and four enough time had passed for us to say the internal options have been exhausted most only is that i already got this west or lets move up a step to obtain a decision for an investigation at the National Level he was not sure that it was the National Police archive helpful to the investigation into the west of where him throw in the course in the case of a poor new tool other persons were also registered which does help to shed light on the abductions in the middle of the somebody who has forced us to study and a lot of the documents which emerged in the historical archives confirm the validity of the famous military log book last and that is as you own them for most of the area without the need for media here to twenty six families accepted hellens after we took the keys to the enter aMerican Court of human rights. And in each of the law they could they were saying its a change in the early one nine hundred eighty s. The Interamerican Commission on human rights stated in its reports on the human rights situation in guatemala that there had been a dramatic increase in violence there along with suppression of trades unions with opposition groups students and academics Political Parties cooperatives Farmers Association his Church Members journalists and indigenous inhabitants. Is from the main to the left for the. As the Security Forces document that confirms their participation in the repression of it is a unique source which confirms the actions taken by the state against its own citizens twenty seven years on the abductions as well as many serious violations of human rights in this conflict remain unpunished in addition the report documents how the state of guatemala covered up all action taken against the civilian population when they could bring to conflict the mother over the years when we see you can increase savings in the Area Military case took seven long years then in two thousand and twelve the Court Announced its decision for the First Time Since the end of the civil war and thirty years after the horrible events the guatemalan government was found guilty of several instances of complicity in the disappearance of people and was ordered to pay compensation it was also obligated to document for past charity precisely what had taken place amongst other things the state had to produce and broadcast a documentary film. That was me get on has idea it seemed to us the best way to prevent people from forgetting. The. Instance by effect of these fields are perhaps the last thing that he trades union is a months yo via toto saw when they took him to the military base and come up in effect you could if you by chance we were able to identify his mortal remains here in a secret mass grave and hundreds of graves like this have been found thanks to the many people who are not afraid of threats and repression. In here do you think that according to the miller top six other people were executed on the same day as a month zero. Was when we found all of them in this grave in the fourth. Little bones understood it and he doesnt say this museum is like a place where weve buried him and can reveal to everyone his story his struggle and his death seems to you to seek to get into it into this exhibition of his bones has indeed had an impact yet for me these are not his bonus they are a month seal himself each of us reacts in our own way to this point of what i would describe as the cycle of pain when you actually find your missing relatives if you look in the photos you know this is it ok for me personally that is the start of this cycle of pain the beginning of grief to me to its in this because at that moment you accept everything that has been written and said. That and what we ourselves knew about my fathers disappearance you will be sent in by these humans this is going to. Do mean to me until the bones are found deep down inside you still nurture hope but when they appear i think of the fifty seven days of torture that has had the greatest effect on me i think yes they happened those fifty seven days of torture yes he had to suffer the torture mentioned in his statement by allah bottled almos who saw him there he was the one santa job well to tone heard screaming under torture. Yes he was the one that the audio mini tada says was buried in a former garrison this all becomes so real when you have to identify the remains and it is worst of all for the relatives of someone who disappeared this is something we first had to learn to cope with and even though identifying a relative who was abducted is a terrible experience i believe that everyone should have the right to find their loved ones no matter how agonizing it is. They arrested him together with his girlfriend and they never came back no neither of them. We can still look at so many photographs here. And thats my uncle yes. When i get the most and this is the door to the bunker i think its five meters wide and. Its thirty meters deep and five meters long its simple middleboro. Didnt do it because it was enough if i remember correctly it says in the log book that jose xenon was murdered in zone eleven homes. Thats right. I havent had a chance to look in the file again but i think he was found here this gives us hope that someone else from the local could also be identified. To consider what it was yes from the military are people do you think there are people who say no thats not my relative because theyre afraid of claiming him. As i can a sack out when the noise and look for the one of the seven in the most intense will misfire when it was like that with luis collins race he was arrested tortured murdered and buried at love at being a cemetery his parents drove here to identify his remains but they were so afraid that they didnt say a thing. They had longed to be able to bury him but out of fear they had to pretend they didnt know who he was it was only years later that they summoned the courage to bring him here from an anonymous grave and give him a proper burial. So covered all the known the star. He and today they can visit him and bring him flowers on his birthday on Public Holidays and on special days like today he. Will spend a few years does the money i mean we cant do that who can we visit. So out of also no. I know one of the cars we dont know where they are so the. Government representatives were only fooling themselves if they thought we would interact. On this and then were not afraid of them and neither are so many other guatemalans the government wanted to intimidate and to see things that is. In the new in twenty fifteen off to six months of demonstrations against corruption former general autopen a small enough had to resign as president hes now in prison i. Am one the memory of someone has to be kept alive otherwise like the flame of a candle it dies memories need pictures words but. You. Know it is for this reason that my father ophelia is brother and so many others were made to disappear. Because for me just like that fight goes on in a totally different way i mean for them. And theyre still here with us. Please a leaf. A. Way build a name. Is a verb. Gave. It. A m. I am am. I. Its all about the moments before. Its all about the slaves inside and. Its all about George Chance to discover the world from different perspectives. Join us to sponsored by distinctive instagram murders. Double news stories from the two topics each week on instagram. The whole g. W. On one and. W. Made for minds of. Freedom of expression. Of value the old ways has to be defended and new. All over the world. Are to a Freedom Freedom of art. A multimedia project about artists and their right to express their views freely. D. W. Dot com the freedom. To. Play. Play play play play. Play. This is deja vu news live from berlin can germany and turkey get their relationship back on track tessa macko has met with the turkish Prime Minister and says theres a will to improve ties but is there a way a german journalist and a number of other citizens remain behind bars on what human Rights Groups say are politically motivated charges in turkey