The Smell of My Own Fear

This is not a regular crime story, although it is about murder, torture and rape. This is a true story about inconceivably human suffering, about a woman who survived and her fight for justice. This is also a book about evil.

ESMA was the largest of the many death camps in Argentina during the military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983. Thirty thousand people disappeared – tortured to death or thrown alive from airplanes. Blanca Firpo survived and fled with her family to Sweden.

“We wanted to survive, not to save our lives, but to tell the world what happened. The torturers killed us in the name of God. We smelled burnt after going through electric-rod tortures. Menstrual blood flowed and my body was bruised. If I didn’t shower, I was savagely beaten and if I showered, I was raped. Between the rapes, they beat with a baton or tested water torture. I will never forget and I see my dead friends´ faces before me again and again.”

The suffering inflicted by the torture will never end. The severely injured kidneys from the constant kicks, damaged spine with bones pressing into the heart and lungs, broken teeth, hearing loss and post-traumatic stress Blanca suffered is ever present. But Blanca never gives up and is now working with others in Buenos Aires to ensure that those responsible in the military are convicted of crimes against humanity.