Generously sponsored by the Humanities Research Centre, the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, the School of Law, and the European History Research Centre.

The large influx of fugitive Nazis and collaborators in post-WWII Argentina created an environment that normalized the presence of such heinous criminals in society and by doing so facilitated the crimes of Argentina's own genocidal dictatorship in 1976-83. “If you're a neighbour to Adolf Eichmann or Josef Mengele, or just a random German that you knew did bad things during the war, what does this do to you? It means that once these things start happening in your own country, society has acquired the habit of coexisting with evil,” says Goñi. A witness to the erasure of truth as a measurable reference, of the moral decay and the normalization of violence that preceded Argentina's 1976 military coup, Goñi sees alarming parallels with the extreme views and abusive behaviour in current political discourse. The author believes the dictatorship survival skills he acquired under Argentina's military junta could prove useful in such an environment.
Uki Goñi is best known for his book The Real Odessa: How Nazi War Criminals Escaped Europe, augmented edition, Granta Books, London, 2022, resulting in numerous appearances in documentaries on the topic by the BBC, Discovery, NatGeo and PBS. As a journalist he was written a series of stories on human rights and the environment for the Guardian, op-eds for the New York Times and essays on authoritarianism and racism for the New York Review of Books. Born in the US to an Argentine family, he was raised in Dublin where he lived until the age of 21. He resides in Buenos Aires.

Report

Uki Goñi, investigative journalist for several international newspapers of record, spoke on 15 May 2023 about the expanded edition of his book The Real Odessa, to an audience of 30 students and staff at Warwick. Rather than reprising the content of his book, he explained the reasons why he wrote it. He offered unique and important insights into the origins of the Argentine dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s, recalling for example his childhood in Dublin as the son of the Argentine ambassador in the late sixties welcoming some of the military representatives who would go on to declare and wage a bitter cultural war against the left in Argentina – initiating a cultural attack comparable to the cultural wars discussed today. He traced the origins of this mentality to Nazi Germany and connected it to the role of Argentine President Juan Perón in enabling the escape of Nazis to South America at the end of World War Two. Goñi’s vision thus looked back from the Argentina of the junta to the legacy of WWII while also demonstrating the relevance of exposing such public discourses today. He also explored the process of locating, accessing and divulging sources, narrating instances of lost and burned documents, and those difficult to access because of official policies. Goñi’s forensic research has been used in legal trials in Argentina, illustrating the value of the ethical investigative approach that he employs The audience was thus treated to an excellent discussion of methodology and the value of challenging prevailing policies as they influence access to materials. Questions covered the dilemma for a journalist of being called to testify in public, which for Goñi comes down to his commitment the truth held in concealed and hidden archives, the responsibility of the researcher in relation to individual and highly charged stories, and his future book plans.

Goñi also exchanged thoughts with a group of researchers in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, deepening the discussion about strategies for accessing archives which officialdom may wish to keep out of reach and offering his views of journalism and the problems of so-called media ‘balance’ in the era of ‘fake news’. The conversation was an especially valuable insight, from a professional and practice-focused angle, into questions which concern academia at present, but also opened up a discussion about how they might be navigated.

Objectives

The aim of this visit was to give students an insight into how to research and manage materials relating to multiple archives and contentious historical topics. It also brought together students from a variety of disciplines (Languages, Law, History, Creative Writing) with research overlaps but who may not always come together to discuss them, as well as the wider university in an exchange about research ethics. In this sense, the objectives were met. Goñi met a number of researchers working on Latin America for whom this connection could be helpful in the future, and the visit put Warwick firmly on the map of interdisciplinary scholarship in how to manage contested pasts. Goñi will also speak in London (introduced by Guardian journalist Jonathan Freeland) and Dublin, with acknowledgement of Warwick in enabling his trip. While there are no immediate outcomes, the connection should bear future fruit and is reputationally important.

A Conversation between the Conference Organisers: On the Day (Featuring Comparative Literature PhD

Writing about web page https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/hrc/confs/territorialbodies/

A Conversation between the Conference Organisers: The Build–Up

Writing about web page https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/hrc/confs/territorialbodies/

Writing about web page https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/hrc/confs/homecoming/

We are pleased to announce the winners of the HRC Doctoral Fellowship Competition as follows:

Gennaro Ambrosino & Kerry Gibbons (SMLC) - ‘Archaeology, Psychoanalysis and Colonialism: The Return of the Repressed in European Culture in the Modern Age’