The money and 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 theyd never existed as if theyd never been here among us in those communities for instance. From one thousand sixty to one thousand 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 in the meantime or in the delivery van arrived and thanked them in fiftieth it yes they had planned it all carefully and now you want to put it into. A blocked off the road and drove a white van into the door to gain access to the apartment in a little place. For months and out the meeting say a few climbed up this window grate and what i am being is had only one of them they were. 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. People sitting you know they came over the roof jumped down where the pipe is and met the others here you have. And then some rushed into the rooms where we were. The others went straight to my brothers room and kicked in the door. Becoming. Evil. What then we heard a shot fired. The bullet hit the corner over there. And. Sorry for asking but did you see him being physically abused did you hear him shout all scream. Or you must be he was but yes we did because back then there was only a curtain where that door is now you know all of them therefore had. Someone outside give an order to bring me out they thought we had weapons and i was supposed to show them where they were buried. Even momento your families. I went outside and saw my father digging a hole. You know you. Know up by them after they thought thats where the weapons were. But i knew nothing about that so i couldnt tell them anything that would have given them a moment until friday. 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 that building. You have. Never seen 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. And that usually those people would return later to wreck the apartment and if they discovered anyone there theyd take them away too you know thats why we left the house quickly and look into quitters it with your parents there when they took sergio. Yes my mother and father were also there when said joe was abducted with. Each other meaning 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 reacted in a similar way including my mother in ritual 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 streets of cairo can look to you but it wasnt him. It wasnt him but thats the only way he was ever mentioned again. Otherwise the subject was to boo. In a swedish when youre 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 been pointed out to me you needed and it was the most brutal repression of a people ever endured in latin america i mean. How do you do any of you are 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 you saw a lot of people here and look to the lot of bodies im walking on c. V. And most often run into other relatives especially in la that being a cemetery he. Is where most of the murder victims were taken us is he now. Little you recognized many of the dead 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 features cut so finely were probably made with a razor blade and the house or maybe less if that is. The salt in lemon had been rubbed into the water. It was horrifying send. The mom also flame the tsunami 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 he was how he got. It on his they were students at San Carlos University and she was pregnant but he siac is that i am but. Seeing him babble. I thought i would if somebody told us that when they were found the babys head was in its mothers stomach a new. Didnt really begin. With Solidarity Group of aquarium or two it 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 seem glad when you finish until school since the founding of our organization on june the fifth 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. Much of those qualities many of whom were undoubtedly abducted under the regime of gen me if you victorious me here. I. Dont i well 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. A free man cannot be somebody they claim that the missing have left the country or joined the girl years. Gone how could they know that what proof do they have. When we only want to. Know beneath the people of guatemala we cannot allow these inside us crimes to go unpunished. That they build him 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 is more than i am so and by the two hundred twenty five families which constitute a poor you move 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 day after day more and more people came to help were much well and asked for help in their search for relatives who had disappeared. And we first came here ten years ago this was a horrible place dirt floor pitch black we put the might soon and the individual rooms were shocking they were small. And had no light or windows. And the doors were just grills. Not industrial grills. But homemade one of. Anyone see how one goes where the grill showed the Political Prisoners were kept here 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 ive 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 us how we know very little about what happened in these places on us. When they sent these when de santis or was held at this Police Station which still exists today. That would be my last. The last time i saw her was on march the eighth one thousand nine hundred full International Womens day now that im heading one dollar to pull this one down on agr. The soldiers burst into our apartment and forced my brother and me to watch as they talked shit. Out of put out i am less like i dont know. They pulled out her fingernails one by one with ply as. If we all saw only gals have it and we had to watch. It as unless we did not acquire the skill and 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 them being done to no less a standard. Sinners haply we had to watch as our mother was also tortured in the same way we mostly house. On money madeleine as the enemy the last words she was able to say to was were be strong be strong where south when. Youre 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 can in the end even general may have it taught us what amount of military dictator had to receive us back as represented in the barbaric repression unleashed by the army and other organizations no one would 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 americas watch they are the ones you know the Mutual Support Group what do you do when i very seldom there instructions from washington d. C. Yeah im used to it in a way if it is in america i watch way as you can see a little bit of an interest in it gets used in i really didnt know when i called the first night in eighty five. Something happened which we could all feel good. To be the leader of a poor moto character gomas calisto was murdered. A 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 be it weak it is obscene amounts most i will say cmos to me im not she was truly courageous a real fighter but we were afraid i still remember how we talked about it short of the oh god now its our turn what are we going to do to you at last about a sort of value on a job i sat for a few know the q. B. Comply as a mother you must have been worried about me 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 ease when suddenly they pointed to me got into their cars and came after me i drove faster and faster i turned left and right and wherever possible i went down narrow streets when i arrived fortunately your grandfather was standing by the gate this is the only i shouted at him to open up which the poor chap did immediately that i drove in and right to the back where he kept his seat i was so scared that held you tight got out of the car and hid in the bedroom is that in a heart of him if he has been there what about you here to me now they are going to kill us i thought and yet i had promised your father that i would look after you just yet. As a moment the place. Seemed not to be winning we seem to be losing after all we had already lost. Back then in the week before easter wed still been consoling and encouraging one another then already called me to say that rosario had disappeared but i see how sad it is that. The little boy had diarrhea and so she had gone to buy some nappies the child and her brother were in the car with her. Is in the lot 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 burnt 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 but 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 a poor young one to it was no longer the same we fought on or at least we tried to but not like we had done before but still despite everything we did try me. Last year is commonly actually missing this is where his bed was all your early on after it happened i spent a lot of time here i knelt and said the rosary. All i wanted was for my son to be alive for him not to be tortured while here you look 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 and 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 will be a day passes without me asking this of godly when i can i go out into the yard at two or three in the morning and pray to the lord please give me an answer i cant enjoy 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 in and miss home theyre committed. To finish a peking 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 around communities people will say that it seems like its impossible to change it 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 into 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 was when we had a special relationship with our father he was a tall man is he i thought. It was time which was very well i liked his moustache his beard he was big and had a dull 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 on and suddenly is taken away from you at the moment and it was an incredible shock when that hand was taken away gentle man 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 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 and it is becoming. That if you can see that like there was nothing more we could do 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 only topped the military log book appeared. In the log book league guatemalas military secret service recorded information on people who between one hundred eighty three and one thousand nine hundred five under general asco home bateau mahir victorious were arrested in abducted by state officials and. In one thousand nine hundred nine a 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 on 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 detainee was moved to. Another secret Service Facility or was released in most cases the follows the code three hundred or say a lowly able poncho poncho took him away that meant death or execution must be apart from our notice is the diorio militant is the only document which proves that the abductions with the work of the army in the police force here. Given the heart 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 your money power failures brother power those father. Enable or whatever 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 known as a video only i will remove any differently question the list was published in the sunday edition of a national newspaper. On the i mean yeah. Someone came to our house and said look your husbands name is in the paper. It doesnt go over millions with a live news papers 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 at all was 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. Now with the reading of the laureus the horse and im the one. The good thing in our case was that fathers photograph and his personal details were printed in the news. Paper 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 global. 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 gouge 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 the scene of the nazi else. Was easy. 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 how relatives and about revealing parts of our history like littleton yes its a lot of money yes but theres the story 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 a million tonne 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 in earlier theone that theyre living athir the Public Prosecutors Office for human rights decided to have this building investigated i mean the delegation arrived and came down here just like we were doing 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 she was up on the c. S. In so 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 i think is and yet when the peace treaties were signs theyd also denied that an archive even existed in that field. As for leave to get rid of all of it back then when the government was toppled they used this building as a secret prison that best. They mostly on trial in the archives we found more than six thousand documents which relate to what is recorded in the the audio military. And if he was useful for the lowliest the i was like confirm the accuracy of the information contained in the log book but i think that it the acts of violence carried out by the police are also documented even ceiling unless you singing it of a media in the sense that just happened yet when someone was abducted and taken away witnesses would take note of the vehicles number plate and know that only a woman. On the same way again was to do what we have here alleges 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. And this proves that the vehicle in which someone was abducted belonged to the National Police force the police so the state police were responsible with the boys up there was a. Big one 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 individual 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. Here does any of them help if we put the population of guatemala and the seventys and eightys. At around eight million and assume that half the people who are minors it means that the state police are registered and monitored more than one quarter of all adults in this country roll over a mother leaving be singable simple little. Only that would allow a book of yes. Was published in one thousand nine hundred ninety one lots of us finale. Also by two thousand and four enough time had passed for us to say the internal options have been exhausted most only stars here but all we got of this west has moved 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 looking for him more of course in the case of a new tool other persons were also registered which does help to shed light on the abductions in the middle of this happens when as for search you can actually study and a lot of the documents which emerged in the historical archives confirm the validity of the famous military log book in less than athens has shown the promotional nearly thirty meter media year to twenty six families accepted helens after we took the keys to the enter aMerican Court of human rights. And in each of the law they were saying is for 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 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 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 because the conflict. Over the years until we see blinkers seedings in the Area Military 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 very 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. Is pushed by effective these fields are perhaps the last thing trades unionists among c. O. V. A 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. And you didnt get it 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 and its the fourth. It opens up this is it and if he doesnt this museum is like a place where weve buried him and can reveal to everyone his story his struggle and his death seems to me to take to get into and this exhibition of his bones has indeed had an impact yet for me these are not his bonus they are a months ago himself each of us reacts in our own way to this point of what i would describe as the cycle of pain and when you actually find your missing relatives you look in the photos and you know this is it ok for me personally that is the start of the cycle of paying the beginning of grief. I mean its because at that moment you accept everything that has been written and said and what we ourselves knew about my fathers disappearance you will be so you know whats interesting. To me 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 all about almost who saw him there he was the one seven year old welt at dawn heard screaming under torture. Yes that is 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 now neither of them. We could still look at so many photographs here. Thats my uncle yes. Well this is the door to the bunker i think its five meters wide and. Its thirty meters deep and five meters long. If i remember correctly it says in the log book that jose zane on was murdered in zone eleven. 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 log book could also be identified by public 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 a community to stack out when the noise they look for in one of them said in the most intense will they respond when it was like that with luis collins race he was arrested tortured murdered and buried at lavabit in 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 Public Holidays and on special days like today he. Will spend a few years does your body i mean we cant do that who can we visit. Resulted also little. I know one of the cars we dont know where they are the. Government representatives were only fooling themselves if they thought we wouldnt tacked. On this the name of were not afraid of them and neither is so many other guatemalans of the government wanted to intimidate and to see that hes. In the nuke in twenty fifteen after six months of demonstrations against corruption former general autopen a small enough had to resign as president hes now in prison i. Want a memory of someone has to be kept alive otherwise like the flame of a candle it dies memories need pictures the words. You. Knew. It is for this reason that my father brother and so many others were made to disappear. It is for me to them that fight goes on in a totally different one i mean for them. And theyre still here with us. Please please. Please wait till a game. Is a verb. Gave. The end. I am am. I. Get. An Award Winning film cuts both controversial m. Nine m. And m. Facts in this massive piece that mary and. Most of the origins of this film. Is how did it influence the discussion of jimmys nazi cause. The film and it still any spaces gently imprint. Led to. The scars on muslims the pain still tangible. The surface her going to the smaller cities edge but. They have survived do they also have a future. I really understand people who say they dont want to stay here. But i also admire people who want to stay here and who decided to create something. New beginning in peace time more the people making it possible what needs to happen here for tolerance and reconciliation or to stand a chance of. Darkness cities during war. Starting march tenth on d w. My. This is deal b. You news live from berlin as world powers hundreds die in syrias. Frustration at the u. N. As another sees fire vote is delaying it a new vote is scheduled as the Syrian Government and russian airstrikes unleashed devastation on the rebel held area near damascus also coming up