afternoons when she burnt books, magazines and letters, and changed her address book so that certain names would not appear? Or about that time when she was stopped on the street and they put a gun to her chest, but luckily she had her identity papers.

Time gnaws at the memory of us grown-ups. Perhaps we believe the horror we have lived through will not be repeated. Or perhaps we think it has all been a nightmare, an error, a bad dream better quickly forgotten. Who among us dares tell our children about that feeling of oppression we felt in our chests when we heard the sirens at night, and the enormous silence that surrounded them, our breath held until the sound died away in the darkness? No, they didn’t stop here! They keep on going today; and we sigh a breath of relief when we hear the shots far in the distance.

Do your children and mine know the names of the friends we lost in those dark years? I have to confess to you I did not talk to my children about Graciela Mellibovsky’s fathomless eyes, aboutRafael Perrotta’s journalistic endeavors or about Amalia Moavro’s passion for the opera.

No, our children don’t know anything about all this. Are we protecting them, or is it that we don’t dare show them our own fear? What has overtaken us that we forget so easily? Perhaps some blind faith that history cannot repeat itself?