Emilio Crenzel: Memory must serve to build rights, to reflect on what should have been avoided, to ask ourselves what we were and what we are capable of.

Эмилио Кренсель: «Память должна служить для укрепления прав, для осмысления того, чего следовало избегать, для того, чтобы задавать себе вопросы о том, кем мы были и на что мы способны»

Corresponding author: Emilio Crenzel is a Doctor of Social Sciences, researcher at the National Council of Scientific Research and Professor of the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Author of Pensar los 30.000 Que sabíamos sobre los desaparecidos durante la dictadura y que ignoramos todavía (2025); Memory of the Argentinа Disappearances: The Political History of Nunca Más (2011). Coeditor of The Struggle for Memory in Latin America: The Recent History of Political Violence (2015) and editor of En y más allá de los tribunales. La justicia ante los crímenes de lesa humanidad en la Argentina (2025). He is an author of papers about Transitional Justice, Human Rights, and social memories of the political violence and dictatorships in the Southern Cone of Latin America.Email: emiliocrenzel@gmail.com. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2125-0546.

The interview was conducted by Yurii Latysh, PhD (candidat istoricheskih nauk), Visiting Professor of State University of Londrina (Brazil), deputy editor-in-chief of The Historical Expertise.

Автор: Эмилио Кренсель – доктор социальных наук, научный сотрудник Национального совета научных исследований и профессор Университета Буэнос-Айреса (Аргентина). Он является автором книг «Подумать о 30 000. Что мы знали о пропавших без вести во время диктатуры и чего мы до сих пор не знаем» (2025); «Память об исчезновениях в Аргентине: политическая история Nunca Más» (2011). Он является соредактором книги «Борьба за память в Латинской Америке: новейшая история политического насилия» (2015), и редактором книги «В судах и за их пределами. Правосудие в отношении преступлений против человечности в Аргентине» (2025). Он является автором многочисленных работ по вопросам переходного правосудия, прав человека и социальной памяти о политическом насилии и диктатурах в странах Южного конуса Латинской Америки. Email: emiliocrenzel@gmail.com. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2125-0546.

Беседовал Юрий Латыш, приглашенный профессор Государственного университета Лондрины (Бразилия), кандидат исторических наук, доцент, заместитель главного редактора «Исторической экспертизы».

Yurii Latysh: Please tell us about your new book, Pensar los 30,000.

Emilio Crenzel: The book analyses how knowledge about the system of disappearances structured by the last Argentine dictatorship was developed among its denouncers: relatives of the disappeared, human rights organisations, exiles, parties and armed organisations. It seeks to answer the question of what Argentine society knew about this clandestine system by showing what its denouncers knew. It concludes that this knowledge was developed gradually and was very heterogeneous: it was influenced by different interpretations of the dictatorship, the violence it exercised, who its victims were, and the ability to recognise that violence that transcended moral and legal limits could be exercised by the state, that the kidnapped people were held captive in military or police units, that there were thousands of them, and that they were murdered. The book concludes that, while these differences existed among those who reported the crimes, among the population at large, knowledge of this criminal system was more laborious, slow and heterogeneous.

Yu. L.: If I may ask, why are you interested in this topic? Were the members of your family affected by the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 until 1983?

E. C: During my sociology studies at the University of Buenos Aires, I became interested in human rights issues. At the same time, my family was interested in politics. My parents were activists who supported Raúl Alfonsín since the 1960s, and I had uncles who were forced into exile. Later, in the 2000s, when I visited the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem, I learned that 16 members of my family had been murdered by the Nazis during the Shoah, many of them in Babi Yar.

Yu. L.: What role did CONADEP (Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas) and its report Nunca Más played in restoring justice? And what role have human rights defenders played in preserving the memory of the crimes of the military dictatorship? Did the government or civil society play the main role in restoring justice?

E. C: The Nunca Más (Never Again) report was the result of CONADEP's investigation into the fate of the disappeared. Published in 1984, it quickly became a bestseller, shaping the collective memory. The CONADEP investigation served as the basis for the indictment of the military juntas in their 1985 trial. Human rights organisations played a central role in providing evidence to the commission. After the trial, the Alfonsín government and then the Carlos Menem government limited the trials through impunity laws and the pardoning of the juntas. After 15 years, these laws were repealed during the Néstor Kirchner government, and the trials continue to this day.

Yu. L.: In 1985, members of the Argentine military junta were sentenced. This trial of statesmen guilty of mass murder was the first since Nuremberg. Why was Argentina able to convict members of the military junta? And why do you think military dictators have not been convicted in other Latin American countries?

E. C: For two reasons. Firstly, following defeat in the 1982 war against the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands, the armed forces were unable to prevent a review of their actions during the repression. Secondly, Alfonsín, a candidate with a justice programme, won the elections and implemented it within three days of taking office. In other countries, transitions from dictatorship to democracy or from war to peace were agreed upon, delaying or directly preventing trials.

Yu. L.: Recently, materials about Nazi criminals who found refuge in Argentina were declassified. Why has this issue become relevant today, and what does Argentine society remember about it?

E. C: I understand that they have not contributed any new insights. The image that part of Argentine society has is that the country was a refuge for Nazi criminals. In fact, Adolf Eichmann and other criminals were living here. Since the 1930s, and especially since the rise of Peronism, Nazism, and the country's alignment with the Axis in the Second World War, these factors have permeated local political dynamics.

Yu. L.: Since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war, there has been a perception that the politics of memory has failed. The slogan “Never again” failed to protect Europe against the ongoing war. Do you think that the politics of memory can protect us from repeating the mistakes of the past, from wars, dictatorships, etc.?

E. C: Indeed. The Russian-Ukrainian war, but also the destruction of Gaza, growing global tension and the emergence of political forces with mass support that vindicate totalitarian pasts paradoxically challenge the will of Never Again after decades of intense memory policies. There are new generations who did not live through that past, who are disenchanted with their current economic situation and the lack of prospects for the future. So, they look back and find hope for the future. The challenge is to find a way for them to engage with an understanding of what happened in the past, not as mere recipients of stories that they receive mechanically, but as active agents who question it based on their concerns in the present.

Yu. L.: In “Appel de Blois,” Pierre Nora stated that politicians should not interfere with collective memory, which is the prerogative of historians. Recently, many countries have been passing new memory laws. This is a very pressing issue for Eastern and Central Europe. What is the situation with memory laws in Argentina? Where is the line between restoring justice and state interference in history, restricting academic freedom?

E. C: In Argentina, there is no such law. I understand that memory cannot be imposed by law. It is the result of public discussion about the past, of active efforts to learn about it and bring it to the present. A former Chilean president, Ricardo Lagos, coined the phrase ‘there is no tomorrow without yesterday,’ which sums up a response to those who reject the idea of looking to the past and focusing on the future. Some pasts are very significant and remain in the present in various ways. Memory must serve to build rights, to reflect on what should have been avoided, to ask ourselves what we were and what we are capable of. It is one of the fundamental exercises of democracy and coexistence.

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