On Saturday, we spent several hours at one of the most moving museums I've experienced - the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago. It takes visitors through the years from the overthrow of Salvador Allende's government and rise of the military dictatorship of Pinochet to the stories of the 'disappeared' who were tortured and murdered during his regime. It's powerful, graphic, disturbing and makes us aware not only of what happened in Chili, but human rights violations around the world. On Sunday, we visited the National Cemetery with magnificent tombs including Allende's and what is known as Plot 29 -- as remains of the disappeared have been found, they are buried in this plot. While many have been identified, there are many whose identities have not been able to be determined. Their graves are marked but unnamed. I wanted to create a photo that would be appropriate to this story.
Junko's image from Saturday shows Jim outside the Human Rights museum in a current exhibit of posters from around the world during the solidarity protests between the mid-1970s and the end of PInochet's regime 17 years later - http://365project.org/jyokota/challenges-and/2014-12-20 . All in all, two sobering activities, but so educative.
For more info on Patio 29, Wikipedia has a brief summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patio_29
This must have been very moving Taffy! It's so easy for us to forget some of the atrocities done in the recent past. We should remember what a cruel world we live in and that these things are still going on in some countries! Thanks for sharing.
Ah, Taffy. I had forgotten what I knew about this period and place in history from a year spent in Spanish House as an undergrad. We had speakers and learned a great deal from those who were in Chile at the time. Hearing from survivors was moving. I can't imagine what it was like to be there, see, and sense the magnitude of events. Very fortunate.
What is tough to learn is that man's inhumanity to man is found around the world and in every age of man. We can only hope that museums like this educate us to be aware of the possibilities so that we might confront the villains before they do this amount of damage. Serial killers are bad enough but when they come into charge there carnage is unbelievable.
Very soul searching. I felt the same when I went to the Falklands and visited the Argentine war cemetery there. Unknown soldiers, mostly mere boys, ill equipped, ill fed and forced to fight and die for a dictatorial regime.
