Argentina remembers the 1976 kidnapping known as 'The Night of the Pencils'

“The pencils keep writing.” With this sentence today in Argentina we remember the tragic kidnapping which occurred on 16 September 1976, by the police of the military dictatorship, of ten high school students in the city of La Plata, six of whom never reappeared.

The episode is remembered as 'The Night of the Pencils' - it gave rise to a film known in Italy with the title 'The Night of the Broken Pencils' - and represented one of the first actions that shed light, even among the citizens, on the ferocious repressive practices implemented by the military government led by Rafael Videla and on the existence of clandestine detention and torture centers.

Exactly fifty years later, it is mainly left-wing and human rights organizations that remember him, while Javier Milei's government has not organized any official commemoration. On the occasion of the anniversary, the University of La Plata awarded three of the four survivors and the family members of the deceased and the six 'desaparecidos', an 'honoris causa' degree. “This is not just an act of remembrance, but a moment to reaffirm our beliefs about memory, truth and justice,” said the university's rector, Fernando Tauber, during the ceremony.