Parque de la Memoria Buenos Aires

Parque de la Memoria, Buenos Aires - darkometer rating : 4 - A memorial on the edge of Buenos Aires that commemorates the "disappeared" in particular and the whole topic of Argentina 's "Dirty War" during the military junta of 1976 to 1983 in general. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: As many as 30,000 people fell victim to the brutal purges of the junta in that darkest of periods in 20th century Argentinean history. And that's "just" the death toll. Torture was rife too. And even abductions of babies born in prisons – taken from their mothers and given away to new "parents" in the military. Still today, only a small proportion of those "adopted" children, now grown up and in their 30s, have found out about their fate. One can only imagine the terrible shock it must be to find out that what you thought were your parents were actually the murderers of your real parents … But those made to "disappear" completely, don't even have that option. In fact, the disappearing was typically done in a particularly cruel way of "disposal": the victims were drugged and tied up and flown by plane or helicopter over the estuary of the Rio de la Plata (River Plate) and dropped into the waters, so that they'd be washed out into the ocean never to be found. (And only in a few cases did remains get washed up on the shores again – and a couple of them could even be identified – but the majority remain simply disappeared). The flights were usually announced as "transfers", as if to another prison or something, but now that their real purpose is known the macabre term "death flights" has become common.