Shadow Lessons

A former Spanish professor of mine, Dr. Alicia Partnoy has been a true inspiration for me. She has dedicated her life to sharing her story as a survivor of the Disappearances, kidnappings that occurred in the 1970s in Argentina.

Here is some of the background from wiki: "Alicia Partnoy is a human rights activist, poet, and translator. After Argentinian President Juan Peróndied, the students from the left of the Peronistpolitical party organized with fervor within the country's universities and with workers, were persecuted and imprisoned. There was a military coup in 1976 and people began to disappear. Partnoy was one of those who suffered through the ordeals of becoming a political prisoner. Partnoy became an activist of the Peronist Youth Movement while attending Southern National University.

She was taken from her home and her two-year old daughter on January 12, 1977, by the Army and imprisoned at a concentration camp named 'La Escuelita' (The Little School).For three and a half months, Partnoy was blindfolded. She was brutally beaten, starved, molested, and forced to live in inhuman conditions. She was moved from the concentration camp to the prison of Villa Floresta in Bahía Blanca where she stayed for six months only to be transferred to another jail. She spent a total of two and a half years as a prisoner of conscience, with no charges.

In 1979, she was forced to leave the country and moved to the U.S. where she was reunited with her daughter and her husband. In 1985, she told her story of what had happened to her at The Little School, in an eponymous book. The world began to open its eyes to the treatment of women in reference to the disappearances of Latin America."

Her book, The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival in Argentina was first published in 1986 and just published for the first time in Argentina in 2006, 30 year after the incidents ensued.

With both a sullen and awe-struck heart, I have listened to Dr. Partnoy read her works. It is so unimaginable and incomprehensible that such injustices occurred and continue to occur in the world. She shared stories of the moment she was first taken away from her one year old daughter, of her outspoken girl friend giving her a pair of earrings before being killed, of pregnant women birthing in camps and prisons and children who were taken and given to military families to be raised unbeknown who the real parents were.  She spoke of the years and years of trials, episodes of what she called 'Magical Marxism,' in which social justice magically plays on synchronistic events, (a play on the Latin American literary term of magical realism,) a generation of mobilized youth dashed.

Dr. Partnoy's resilience, sincerity, passion and skillfully written craft shines so brightly, making her such an inspiration. She reminds me of why its so important to write, to share our stories and brood creativity and awareness and shed light on the dark aspect of humanity. With kind regard, I thank her for sharing her powerful poetry, mind and heart with us.