Educational Media Reviews Online

In 1978, Adriana Victoria and her parents were kidnapped by the Argentinean military regime on suspicion of being antigovernment subversives. She was returned to her grandparent’s house and never saw her parents again. Now in her twenties, with her own child, Adriana tries to understand what happened to her parents and to the more than 30,000 other mostly Jewish citizens that were rounded up and vanished without a trace. Her emotional search for answers leads her to conversations with antigovernment activists who knew her parents. They reveal the shocking revelation that Adriana’s parents were involved in terrorist activities. Adriana also talks to former neighbors who were there when her parents were taken by the military. Conversations with family members reveal long-standing prejudices and fear. A former concentration camp inmate candidly tells Adriana about her father’s fate. Her father, who was Jewish, was tortured at the concentration camp and died as a result of his injuries. Her mother, Catholic, escaped torture but not death.

This program puts a human face on the atrocities that occurred in Argentina and provides a starting point for the discussion of human rights and civil responsibility. Looking for Victoria would be a good addition to any public or academic library collection. Recommended.