Cristina Feijóo

* 1944

  • “Perón disappointed me a lot, and so I stopped being active shortly after his death in 1974. I didn’t want to support Isabela Perón, not Montoneros, which united the rest of peronist organisations, because I believed an armed fighting was unacceptable under democratic conditions. The same happened to many of my co-fighters; we lost all our clues. During the dictatorship I was persecuted for my former activities; once I was active so I deserved a punishment. But the fact I didn’t engage in FAP at the time might have saved my life, when AAA kidnapped me. We were driving a car together with my colleague, and AAA commando crossed our path, took us to Garaje Olimpo, one of the illegal capture centres, kept us there for a day and then let us go. Something similar used to happen to the lost ones; no one knew, why live or die, or who is to decide. Very engaged people survived and others, who had nothing in common with armed groups, were murdered. After AAA kidnapped me, I tried to flee from the country with my husband and daughter, but meanwhile the new regime managed to tighten the screws again, everyone was escaping, and we could not get any false documents, so they didn’t let us pass the borders as our names were listed in many reports; and it was impossible to accommodate any activists; so we were changing places of residence all the time. They caught us in September.”

  • “My daughter suffered much terrible experience. When I got kidnapped by AAA, she stayed at home with her girlfriend, unknown armed men jumped over the wall and inside. Earlier there was a bounty announced in the newspapers on my and my partner´s head and she had to attend school for a year using a false name. But that was our daily bread; the children of activists shared their parents fate, and my daughter got used to it.”

  • “Returning was difficult. I felt bad for spending eight years between prison and exile and then found a completely different society than there was when I left; there were news on television regarding mass graves, but people didn’t want to talk about dictatorship; I could only converse with my neighbours regarding Swedish cousin or weather, but that was the end of discussion; I could see that they have been terrorised for all those years without knowing who they can trust and experienced much fear from others; the first years of democracy we also witnessed two or three dangerous situations, with a real threat of military coup; all that changed the mentality of Argentinians a lot. Some taboos remain until today and left indelible marks; it was not the same society anymore.”

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    Buenos Aires, 28.09.2015

    (audio)
    duration: 01:28:24
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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Our decisions corresponded to the time period we lived in

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Cristina Feijóo

Cristina Feijóo was born in 1944 in Buenos Aires. In her youth she was persecuted as a left-wing activist and several times imprisoned (1971-1973, 1976-1979). In 1979 she left with her only daughter, who was around sixteen back then to Swedish exile with her only daughter, who was around sixteen back then to Swedish exile. She published her collection of stories called En celdas diferentes (1992, In various wards), contributed to the anthology Antología del Cuento latinoamericano en Suecia (1995, Latin-American story in Sweden), for the prose Memorias del río inmóvil (2001, Memories of a motionless river) she received an award of a media concern Clarín, her novel La casa operativa (2007, Undercover life) got the final of an influential publishing Planeta