Historias debidas VI: Macarena Gelman (capítulo completo) - Canal Encuentro

formally I left the clergy I am a loose priest I will not see my identity when they gave me it cost me much more to recover lies no woman is born to be like this I feel it and this is how I live it I cannot give myself permission to die I have to find you 500 a drop of water the entire river and the entire river is contained in a drop of water

macarena

gelman

had a common childhood in the city of montevideo although the entire neighborhood knew the story that he had been abandoned in a little basket he never suspected that he was a daughter adoptive and much less that she was a stolen girl whose biological parents had been kidnapped and murdered by the Argentine dictatorship at the age of 23.

The granddaughter of the poet Juan Gelman would know her true identity. Macarena was born during the captivity of her mother, María Claudia García, transferred to the Uruguay within the framework of the Condor plan and the remains of Marcelo Gelman, his father, are still missing. They were found in the San Fernando

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in 1989. Despite the awareness gained, there are still many gaps and questions in a story that Macarena has not finished putting together but In the journey that for several years he chose to walk in silence, he affirmed his convictions of truth and justice, signifying the legacy of his parents and finding his own voice, crossing the River Plate again and again from Montevideo Buenos Aires from Buenos Aires to Montevideo There is no way to think that the river is not a river that separates but that brings together.

It is also a good image to give an account of these years and this process where, well, it is about bringing together two stories, trying to synthesize the ones, meaning the if the It is true that if this good has really been in the course of these years the attempt to integrate and to find the place for each thing in history for each link for good to reconstruct a little of the history that although it had been left totally separate, well it didn't reflect reality at all so yes and really since I'm going to pass my criminals the first time I traveled on this in this plan to Buenos Aires was in the year 2000 in April of the year 2000 to take the sample in the national genetic data bank and from there I came back I came back and more and more until well it arrived I was installed in both one place and the other and really for me for my story and for me Buenos Aires - I've been missing it for a long time is missing and this moment as it is Macarena why surely against the grain of what your nature is I say you became a public figure your word began to be heard and demanded and of course it has been 13 years since you learned your origin and to what extent everything changed when you can Thinking about everything changes absolutely everything, all the coordinates of my life changed, not only was I not who I thought I was or at least everything I was missing from history because of course I am, I was and I am what I was for 23 years and I who I am now, I believe that identity is something that is constructed and well, in some way in this case it is necessary to amalgamate a little and be more coherent, which does not happen very naturally, yes of course there are moments of but it happens very naturally and that's why At least for me it was a premise for everyone, that is, that things happened naturally, try not to force anything at all and well yes, the truth is that it always had a profile that tended to be clandestine rather than to be there than to so much exposure. but well, since I arrived until 2008, I did not do any interviews. 2005-2006, they took some images but no, I never agreed to do interviews until then and it was an internal stage, yes, but it was necessary and when they asked me and I said well, when I feel that I have something to say and it is necessary to say it publicly, I am going to do it and well, that is how it was when I presented the request to reopen the judicial case and that triggered a little later a whole situation that the case has already received a lot of media attention from your grandfather.

Naturally, my grandfather was better because of what it implied because until now in Uruguay the existence of missing children, stolen children during the dictatorship, had been absolutely denied and well, I am breaking down a little to show how it has happened with everything that has to do with reality. this topic to show well if it is true this happened and it also happened here when it is and naturally it does not mean that it was without crisis that it was if the enormously complex process but that processes this in your privacy or with your emotional circles in the crisis continues but Well, the crisis also means that one has to adapt and in order to follow the alternative, but the crisis, I'm telling you, is much deeper and perhaps more thought out.

At another time it was more of the moment than things surprised me. and although they continue to surprise me, there is a little more head and a little more to try to see how I continue and that has cost me a lot and it costs me and it is a crisis that I carry with me every day in this that change does not change everything. I also changed your horizon of expectations Macarena because for the girl who is interested she liked biochemistry that was with a horizon that well it was probably unthinkable to imagine you in the place where you are today and we only have the granddaughter the granddaughter of songs Macarena and really I do not have clear or voluntary expectations, let's say more than taking charge of my story of what is happening and along those lines the issue of political participation also goes, it does not imply that I now have a clear expectation or horizon that I'm going to make my clarity until I'm going to do more of that in two weeks.

I don't really have it and for me that has been a reason for crisis also because I was always a person who liked having things moderately planned as a good thing. and plainly planned and the least amount of uncertainty possible and yet life did the opposite um well this is my grandfather Antonio and my uncle Alejandro who both live in Barcelona they left practically immediately what was the kidnapping of my parents this is my grandfather Juan and his wife Mara and it was at a tribute in the city that was in the same place where they held a vigil for a friend.

For when the remains were found in the year 89, the stories of the children of the disappeared are so diverse, the stories of the grandchildren are so diverse. Each one has been able to rebuild his biography with what he had to do, he has done what he could some time ago, you said in that statement about your origins, your identity that you felt in this story, in some way you had four parents, two mothers and two fathers, referring to your biological parents naturally to the foster parents and I will continue to be in that place in the story something changed 18 I am extremely clear about the issue of my parents I had parents with whom I grew up who raised me and who were and acted as parents and therefore emotionally They occupy that place in my life but there are my parents who are the ones who gave me life in those who wanted those who dreamed of a future for me and for everyone who very cruelly interrupted the life as they did with the lives of so many Argentines in that moment of so many Uruguayans too and they are my parents, I mean I have no doubt about them and over time I have managed to reconstruct what I could of their lives.

They were very young but they had a very intense life in the biographical story. in that which began to be built from scratch everyone has their place it does not have its place but of course I do not have it is not that simple either no no it is not my intention also to simplify the issue is not at all simple but but well and it is dynamic also because Over time, one acquires new information and things can be situated differently and one should not be closed to that either at this moment it is like that well tomorrow I don't know birthday number 3 birthday number 3 and when you see this photo I thought about what's wrong with you today with birthdays because the birthday is always like a moment, both ambivalent in sensations, it is always like that, there is no fear that when saying the good, this is dramatic in case it is not, but to begin with, I am practically sure that that is my date birthday but not totally the first of November but not totally sure the first of November since the year 76 the 36th but not not totally sure not 100% sure so let's start from the base that I'm not sure it's my birthday although it's very probable and everything indicates that it was like that and then well at the moment of birth it is a moment I imagine in everyone's imagination it is one of immense joy and it is very difficult for me to think under what conditions my mother gave birth and the loneliness and the uncertainty, the great anguish of being separated in Europe and not knowing what was going to become of them beyond what they could think or imagine and in some way and with all these stories it is the moment of birth because what was expected, the birth has As a good thing, it was the certainty that the mother would not survive and that her son was going to be taken away, so it is very difficult to celebrate a birthday in those conditions, so for me it is a moment of reflection, it is a moment many times of sadness I hope I change with time but I don't know the truth I don't have that whole birthday fantasy but the one that that girl had who blew out the candles innocently at exactly 3 years old in kindergarten how long ago could you corroborate from the testimonies from other detainees who live with your mother in captivity in Macarena with complete certainty until December 22, that is, we are talking about a month and a half and a half, a little more, the date that they leave me at the door of the prison is likely.

The house of those who later became my parents is on January 14 but between December 22 and 14 R8 I have no idea what happened and nothing has been known about that story that sounds so so so childish almost since it tells of The fact that they left you with a little basket at the wolf's door would be your foster parents, where does that story come from? That story is told by my mother and her foster parents, and well, it is corroborated in some way by those close to the neighbors. They knew that story. The neighbors knew that. They had arrived at the house, it was not hidden at all, on the contrary, my mother never set a definition of pregnancy.

I was very happy and told it to the four winds, so that was not an issue that was hidden thinking about the distance and with reservations. about the case because I don't know but I think that it was put together so that I could receive myself armed for her probably yes no the little basket even having a note that said the baby was born on November 1st I am the mother I can't take care of her there is one thing that It impresses me a lot and it's because when she told me that note it was written in a handwriting that looked like someone left-handed and because of the exact handwriting and I couldn't help but think and well and I hope it's not there but she will love me absurdly and I hope That they haven't made me write that, the big question that still has no answer, which is like that basket and why I went to that house, is probably the big question that your foster father Ángel Taurino couldn't, but I couldn't ask him that question, not really, he died. three months before I found out in 1999 and in October 1999 on the same date that the drums were thrown into the canon of San Fernando but they tell me they were 20 years old, the twenty-somethings encouraged the drums and they were thrown on October 14 76 my foster father died on October 14, 99 impressive very impressive coincidence and say the drums where Marcelo Gelman's remains were found of state for lying logical and this and well a few days before he died he cried a lot and asked me sorry but you didn't tell me why in my imagination I don't know what good I'm left alone with this one with my mother and well I surely have to take care of many things yes but at that moment I don't record another moment so it was in those same days that I needed blood transfusions and I went to see if I could donate blood and the blood types will be incompatible in a way that questioned this although obviously I could not affirm anything he questioned the link however I with this knowledge and with this And with all that I could suspect, my only reflection was my blood is useless.

The mechanisms of Macarena denial are infinite. I think I always repeat this. This is good, but at 23 years old you know absolutely nothing good if I consciously had nothing conscious. that told me or that made me doubt or what, but somewhere that is always there and that for me took on another meaning because the moment my foster mother tells me that I am not their daughter, in reality it is not she who She tells me otherwise she tries to start talking and starts crying and I started to guess what I could do, I take practically nothing, the question will come, what you have to tell me is that I am not your son and I really don't know about Where did that come from?

I think it came from somewhere because it could be so many things and then another question is the dreams. As a girl I had many nightmares but the nightmare was recurring, it was always the same, at least from as far back as I can remember until I was almost 14 years old. nightmare consisted of armed men entering my house with long weapons. I saw them through a small window in the bathroom that I had in the house where that moment came. I saw them arriving with long weapons in dark clothing and I associated them with thieves and at the same time time the feeling I had was because they didn't see me so I had all the sensations of being there but not the awareness in quotes of being there and I woke up when I felt that they were going to find me and that was repeated for many years and at that moment I woke up crying in the middle of the night and not later I even asked my mother I told her I told you what I was dreaming about and she told me not only did you wake up and cry you cried and cried probably one of the empty oneseven more garena and when one of the voids, in addition, there will always be voids and always good to see in everyone's stories, it seems to me that this happens but in the stories of the children, in the stories of the grandchildren, these voids are learned to live together. with them but there are some who feel and who weigh, I dare to assume that in your case this is empty, this thing of knowing exactly who your father was and what and what could have been the link that and the way in which you came into his life is one of the gaps that you care about trying to put truth into it so I haven't stopped working on this since the first day I found out about it because well there is a need for certainty these stories are loaded with permanent uncertainties and well I need some certainty If that is the right one, whatever it is, I have no problem, let's see a photo of Macarena with her grandfather with Juan, well, he was from your biological family, he was the first one you were able to meet personally, yes, sometimes the first encounters are not necessarily the ones that one remembers, not like It was the first meeting, not only do I remember it very well, it was in an office of a Uruguayan bishop in Montevideo in the Plaza Independencia Galimberti.

Nadal imparts that it was actually the client's, with everything, yes, yes, yes, yes, and well, he was with his wife. I remember a lot that I arrived alone, the acquaintances really had a very good feeling from the beginning and I went with some artists from that meeting and now it's good that it was necessary to do a DNA analysis to verify this. What this research said was I think We were all quite shocked and nervous but it was a very nice atmosphere as the bond was built because from that moment on, years have passed and from a struggle that was between the two of us, the first was his to find you and now they are together, well that's it.

It was also built over time and continues to be built over time and with experiences and with what we can talk with what we can with what we can be present with what we can feel we have done what we could we have had good times we have had not so good times but the important thing about everything seems to me and what I feel is that it is good that this affection that was generated over time beyond the biological link was imposed and that I clearly understand these issues of biological and adoptive and upbringing that I am, I say them so that it is understood, it is clear but I don't feel it like that there is a photo of Marcelo and María Claudia, very pretty and well, let's see, now she is pregnant and Carl María Claudia yes yes yes that was On the day of the wedding she was pregnant and she left the wedding in July 76 so on August 5th they woke them up at 11pm at the beginning of July if I remember correctly from July 8th or June I think July and after the 24th August early morning on August 24 when they take them away if they are very pretty or photos of both of them are so cute and when I saw this photo I also went back to the open letter that your grandfather wrote to you where he said well talking about you let's think that this letter is dated 95, now you are almost the age of your parents when they were killed and soon you will be older than them.

They stayed in their 20s forever and as the no says, actually when you learned your story you were already older than them. that they had at the time they disappeared that this realization that you lack body because something like very strong

macarena

happens to you yes yes because well inevitably remember your 20 years will be so different this being so oblivious to everything that was happening that I am yes In a not long time I'm going to double their age. It's extremely shocking and it gives you a kind of annoyance that they haven't followed up, that they're not here and why, and that someone or some have decided that they're not there, it's really very serious. everything that happened is very unfair, how difficult it is to get involved in a family that was not yours and this and some of this difficulty but at the same time that loving desire to feel good is in Berta's story about your grandmother who also from your grandmother from Marcelo's mother who also remembers that moment in the beginning of the first hugs that are so difficult the first hugs this my granddaughter started calling me to ask me how I was taking all this or what I thought well that I answered her in one way like we don't know anything there is no analysis done I very enthusiastically told them that I wish she were my granddaughter and I could be her grandmother but then when this was done to the DNA then she did call me to meet to get to know each other so I The next day I flew to the port, I took the boat, then I arrived at the place where we had met, it was the house of some friends I have in Montevideo, I got out of the taxi under her and under the lady who raised her and the lady left me.

She came up to greet me but 8 of us already felt nothing around me, I looked at her and because I didn't even know if it was her, so the lady left, we both faced each other, they took everything away from me with their gaze glued to him, imagine nothing. I didn't think she was pretty or anything, I looked at her and it was just not being able to believe or not being able to fully understand that this was my granddaughter. Nowadays we know how to treat each other and yes, I started hugging her from the beginning when She was already getting hard, she didn't accept it but I said you're going to have to get used to force and this one and I the truth is that when I touch her when I give her a kiss it's something that invades me because I feel like that hug that kiss can enter her and her father and her parents her parents because she also loved Claudia very much not testimony of pouring part of that emotional mosaic that entered the board of your life if it is really true that we learned how to treat each other but well I was already talking about the first hugs and hugs are also built, you let yourself be hugged you don't let yourself be hugged how easy I was not the same I was always a little like that at least it was never ever easy for me except in some circumstances the issue of hugs and the issue of it is something What's wrong with you is that no one has to be clear about this and although sometimes you feel like it you can't for some reason but the truth is that I am always highlighted the enormous respect that all of them had for me and my life situation when they found me oh they all looked for me.

Also not because it has to be said here we saw the photo of Marcelo Gelman's parents but I say they also looked for and many of María Claudia's parents of your mother well yes my grandmother for me is my grandmother María Eugenia the mother is really an absence and a very big presence, you couldn't meet her, I couldn't meet her and it made me very angry not having been able to meet her because she died a few years before and everything that she already did and everything that determined her life is not written. what happened with my parents and the search and this photo is of my grandmother Eugenia with my mother and my uncle when they were children and well it is a photo that I really like and in addition to the first photos that I saw of my grandmother that unfortunately I didn't get to know her this is a photo with me the credit is in the first years that we met I don't remember exactly but at the beginning of the 2000s you denounced the state of uruguay for the disappearance of your mother maría claudia garcía the state was condemned and There was an act because this was stipulated in the IACHR ruling, an act of profound symbolic value for Uruguayan institutions and I would like to share a fragment of that act and President Mujica's speech.

The state is responsible for the suppression and replacement of the identity of María Macarena Gelman García irritates Goyena. It will occur from her birth until her true identity was determined and expressed as a form of forced disappearance, for which in that period she violated her rights to the recognition of legal personality, to life, to personal integrity, to freedom. to the family to the name to the rights of children and to nationality and for having put their survival and development at risk, affecting their life project, I have also been responsible for the violation of the rights to personal integrity of the protection of family to the detriment of Mr.

Juan Gelman of Marcelo Gelman and grandfather of Macarena as a consequence of the suffering caused by these events and his search for justice, the state recognizes its responsibility for the violation of judicial guarantees and judicial protection due to the lack of effective investigation of the facts of the present case and the trial and punishment of those responsible to the detriment of Juan and Macarena Gelman as a consequence of the interpretation and application that the state gave to the law of expiration of the punitive claim of the state' with respect to serious violations of the human rights, according to this, the state condemns them and affirms its commitment to justice and its desire that similar events not be repeated again.

To this end, the state has given and will continue to give way to reparation films, thank you, what a moment, yes, I believe that It is also important and to make it clear why it was handled publicly as an apology, which it was not and was not, among other things, at a distance at my request. It is also a recognition of what the discourse of international responsibility says that the corpse was by the events that occurred, this place is Orletti Motors, which functioned as a detention center at the time my mother and father were kidnapped along with my aunt, they were brought here, I admitted to releasing them a few days later, my father was the last place where he was more or less At least a month later the mother was murdered.

From here she was transferred to Uruguay. This was a clandestine center where there was a presence of repressive forces from other countries and it functioned as an operations center also within the framework of the Condor plan. Thus, there were kidnapped people of various nationalities in Subjective terms, I felt that the scene of justice also allowed you to close some issues in subjective terms and also in very objective issues in which of course it is each person's choice and for me it was extremely important to be able to hear the testimonies directly, both the testimonies of survivors like the testimonies of the prefectural official who one morning while changing his shift sees the drums being thrown into the

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and apart from that I also obtained some new information during the course of the trial until not only the objectives but the reconstruction of the history and It is in an extremely interesting framework because it is a reconstruction of personal history in a framework that is encompassing of society.

It is an individual and collective reconstruction at the same time and that for the great story of history is your story exactly like that in the two photos. What are we going to see now? Well, it seems that they have to do with that with lives, the one with the plaid shirt, that's Marcelo. Yes, my dad, I have some things, perhaps written, from some letters, exchanges with friends, letters, poetry, because he wrote my mother's poetry, it was more difficult. And coincidentally, it is a photo that she dedicates to a friend of hers who is also missing.

For me, the fact that what she said in the dedication of the photo was always very moving was, well, until death do us part. and issues that as a child one thinks are difficult or adolescent power that is quite difficult what they are happens in a while it really happened very soon the Uruguayan government completed this morning with the first of the acts of recognition of responsibility in the café or María Claudia García ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in a ruling issued on February 24, well, we are here to comply with the ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights by unveiling a plaque in memory of María Claudia García de Gelman de Macarena and all the People who were detained in this place that was the headquarters of the defense information service.

The plaque says the following. María Claudia, transferred to Uruguay within the framework of the Condor plan, remained detained, disappeared, and gave birth to Macarena in Montevideo, allegedly on November 1, 1976 the poet Juan Gelman was in charge of closing the ceremony and narrated two poems on the authority of his son Marcelo Gelman fast Argentine mortals with that proud pencil that has something important to say pink friends and other beautiful pretty enemies dressed hungry for revenge today I want say goodbye today and it will be done today maybe tomorrow first I will say goodbye to this country my friends ask me my enemies friends I just want to remind you not to stop being my friends I just want to remind you not to forget me as time goes by as the train goes When I leave, they erase the traces of distant friendship, many at some point could be clarified because María Claudia was taken to Uruguay that was Argentine, her entire family was, however they were kidnapped and housed in Orletti, which was the clandestine center of the Condor plan. and there they moved to Uruguay, that part could be clarified, no, certainly not, but well, I can make some assumptions, but as such, not as assumptions, well, she was in a clandestine center that was an international coordination center for the Condor plan where forces from different countries operated. countries and there was a presence of troops from different countries, taking into account the presence of Uruguayan soldiers in Orletti, I think it was a product of that proximity and the explanation that for me is always the one that impresses me the most and the one that is most true is that they could to do it simply simply the impunity of being able to do it so I think it was a matter of coincidence in that place due to the presence and proximity of the Uruguayan military in that place and because they could do it that is to say the place where I was born to decide life or death of a person here was when you felt that you were ready and that it was time to changename, in reality it was not a particular moment but it was a process, although at the beginning but at the very beginning I was clear that I did not want to be one at that moment, I don't think that what I did not want to be at that moment was the first two years then the fact of living with this story and knowing the story and wanting this story also as my own and it's good that the explanation is simple that it had to be that way that was like that even if I had another name another surname I was that person who had been brought from the world under these circumstances and then it began to happen that every time they asked me but in very everyday situations and devoid of any connotation of militant politics or whatever you want to call it, they asked me about my name, surname and It happened to me once that I remember on a bus traveling to the Uruguayan coast coming back to I remember I felt a person next to me and we were talking about what I know, well the topic of the origins of surnames came up so I remember there that I told him the origin of My biological family, this definitive period was what I was, so there was Gelman, the name that appears naturally, but I didn't tell him, what I did was tell him, well, yes, my family, my grandfather's family, from the one in Ukraine, but at some point it turns out that I mentioned to him the last name that I had at that time, he told me there was pressure from there, I didn't have to explain so it was the sensation and that was repeated of feeling that I was not hiding something that there was no reason to hide it on the contrary and well then things contributed but they were small things and different things at different times, it was not a moment that I said well and I started to do the paperwork and in 2005 the sentence came out and then well it was made to the description of me with my parents' last names I kept the name it was not written previously with another name at some point I thought about adding the name that my parents wanted to give me, they were like if I was a woman and that is something that I still think about and that maybe someone might do it at some point but the Macarena was formed I affirmed part of that identity so I decided not to change it.

The legacy of your parents is Macarena. It weighs you down. It's a backpack that weighs you. It pushes you. It encourages you to do both things. It's just that it pushes me. It encourages me. What weighs me down. My story of nine pesos. If not. Of course I have many mixed feelings about many issues in history, more than anything because of that desperation of not being able to know the totality and that this is so difficult and well, of everything that happened that were very sad things and it is me and really in very very moments difficult years in these years, what do you feel is in any case that legacy as you mean it today from your present to me what always moved me a lot and impacted me a lot about the history of my parents and that entire generation was the courage and despite the age they were because I really believe that in my generation and perhaps it had to do with the fact that although the dictatorship left its mark on many generations, it was no longer even similar due to the historical context as well, but this one does give me a thing of pride and confidence and admiration for the bravery and the players who were there and how they even stayed in Argentina despite everything that was happening, so I really have admiration for this generation and it has to do with that in this closing and with this one with this photo of a macarena who of course did not yet know her origin but in any case with this photo from another time the proposal is to imagine a dialogue between both macarenas, that is, what do you imagine she could say to that macarena she is with?

Sitting at this table, if I could tell you something, it's difficult what awaits you. The truth is that the only thing I can think of is how far I was from imagining everything that was going to happen and everything that has happened, but hey, I don't regret it. about how I did things or what decisions I made in the course of these years is something so distant, I don't know, it's just that I have, like, many things that I don't remember beyond those that are logical for the time that passed, but I always say that for For me, when I found out, it was like they were all images that passed at an incredible speed and it was a state of total shock that I don't know exactly when I came out and if you still come out, if you had to warn something to that person, it is not always necessary to do your own experience and continue instincts and follow them what this one doesn't feel so I think I would let her have her own experience thanksmacarena