Vicky Gashe attended the ‘Memory, Justice, Truth and Reparations in Argentina’ conference and investigated how memories of the 1976-83 dictatorship are treated in the country.

The afternoon was grey and warm for autumn in Buenos Aires. Many locals were out shopping, having a coffee, or trying to get through the workday, when sounds of music rang through the streets. The music came with the people who descended on Buenos Aires in a March of Indigenous Peoples just days before Argentina celebrated its bicentenary.

“It was the 1933 end of year assembly at the Goethe Schule. I was a student. An SS man who had recently arrived at the German embassy demanded we raise our right arms and sing the Horst-Wessel Song. I wouldn’t do it.” So says Roberto Alemann, director of Argentina’s only German language newspaper. But the same man who, as a boy, refused to raise his right arm for Hitler later went on to become a minister in Argentina’s last military dictatorship, and the family story that began with a fight for freedom and democracy descended into accusations of money laundering, murder, repression and torture.

As this year’s International Human Rights Film Festival opens, all eyes will be on the Bicentenary as theme of ‘plundering’ looks over the last 200 years and at how far Argentina has come, while also questioning how much is left to do. Aptly, Eduardo Galeano, author of ‘Open Veins of Latin America’ will be in town to participate in one of the festival’s debates.