I recently saw a concrete pad and what looked like a large electrical box and thought The hell? They’re putting up a cell tower in the middle of a high school?
Turns out it wasn’t.
Areiel Arcos Latorre (1950-1973) – Julio Enrique Pagardoy Saquieres (1952 – 1973)
Students of the Atlantida High School. Militants of MLN Tupamaros.
“…and you should know that I only die if you loosen up because he died fighting and he lives in every comrade”.
Looks like a plaque was meant to be installed to the left, or fell off, or something.
And, holding true to much graphic design in Latin America, the plaque telling the story – made from letters cut through rusty steel – is basically illegible.
Here’s the story:
This Saturday 14th, Day of the Student Martyrs, a Memorial in Homage to Ariel Arcos (24 years old) and Enrique Pagardoy (21 years old) (Detained and Disappeared, students of the locality and members of the MLN) was inaugurated.
The initiative arose from a group of neighbors of the area as a symbol of resistance.
The physical space was called “Espacio de la Memoria Luisa Cuesta” (Luisa Cuesta Memory Space) located at Circunvalación Avenue and 30th Street (on the premises of Gimnasio Liceo N°1 Atlántida Gymnasium).
The memorial – made up of old school benches made of iron and a stone with a commemorative plaque – is intended to commemorate these students who disappeared in Chile in 1973, during the civil-military dictatorship that several countries in the region were going through.
In charge of the ribbon cutting was Mrs. Virginia Pagardoy (Enrique Pagardoy’s sister) who resides in Atlantida.
“There is one thing that is clear: hate is like a virus that gets inside and there is a way to fight it that is very simple – also very hard – and that is with love, which is what one breathes here,” said Mayor Yamandú Orsi, referring to the group of neighbors who had the initiative to install the memorial.
“We want this space to be a place of reflection, of contact with this history of resistance of our people, history that like many were silenced during the terror of the dark years.”
“We cannot build a future without memory”; were some of the most significant phrases of a very emotional afternoon.
