In 1957, renowned journalist and militant Rodolfo Walsh published Operación Masacre (“Operation Massacre”), revealing the horrors of an execution carried out by police the previous year in José León Suárez, Buenos Aires province.
For 70 years, the massacre remained unpunished.
Operación Masacre would go on to become a landmark of Argentine literature and is widely regarded as the world’s first work of investigative nonfiction.
One of its most famous lines still sends chills down readers’ spines: “Hay un fusilado que vive” — “There is a man who was executed who is still alive.”
Next week, that survivor, Juan Carlos Livraga, will witness the start of a “truth trial” seeking justice for him and the other victims for the first time. Now 94, he is the only one of the seven survivors of the massacre who is still alive.
