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In the United States, at the beginning of
this century, racist and elitist ideas helped promulgate laws that
allowed the involuntary sterilization of tens of thousands of people
labeled as "asocial," "retarded," or "defective.".
. . Nazi Germany raised the flag of "racial purity" based
on the ignorance and distortion of the principles of genetics. .
. The most famous German scientists pressured and convinced politicians
of the justness of their views and contributed to giving a "scientific"
facade to genocide. . .
When Grandmothers Chicha Mariani and Estela Barnes de Carlotto asked
me in New York in 1982 if it was possible to prove the identity
of the children, having only grandparents and other relatives alive,
they were making a social claim to the science of genetics. . .
The challenge inherent in that claim resulted. . . in the first
identification and restitution of one of the victims: Paula Logares.
And this made it possible for human genetics, which for so long
served death and backward interests, to serve life.
-Victor Penchaszadeh
Argentine geneticist, 1992
In May 1978, heavily armed men burst into the home of Paula Eva Logares,
then twenty-three-months old, and kidnapped her and her parents, Claudio
and Monica Logares. Paula's parents who were never seen again.
Paula Logares was one of over 350 children abducted by Argentine security
forces between 1976 and 1983. Many of the children, perhaps most,
were born to young women while they were being held in secret detention
centers. Others, like Paula, had been abducted with one or both parents
who were later killed. Some children were sold on the black market,
while others were given to childless military and police families
or abandoned by their kidnappers at the entrances of hospitals and
orphanages.
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