"Our Auschwitz is the ESMA": Preservation and the Holocaust at the former Higher School of Mechanics of the Navy in Argentina

Abstract

Abstract: The article examines the transformation of the Higher School of Mechanics of the Navy in Buenos Aires, ESMA for its Spanish initials, from one of the largest clandestine detention centers of the Argentine military dictatorship (1976–83), into a historical monument, museum, and a campus for human rights organizations. Starting in 2004, ESMA was symbolically and materially recovered. Following the debates that framed this transformation, it explores how the efforts to preserve the memories of the victims of the civic-military dictatorship were transmuted into the preservation of buildings, and how the local argentine heritage discourse became entangled with global Holocaust tropes. The preservation efforts of ESMA reveal the contradiction between building boundaries to protect the site's past, while at the same time responding to the functional demands of a campus dedicated to present-day human rights and memory activists. Finally, by analyzing the successful application of the ESMA site to the UNESCO World Heritage List, the article explores the tensions between global heritage and local demands for memory, justice, and reparation.