Miriam Lewin
speaker
112 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Mar 2025
Miriam Lewin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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This episode includes discussions of murder, sexual assault, torture, kidnapping, and suicide. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. To get help on mental health and suicide, visit Spotify.com slash resources. In December 1978, 35 decomposing bodies washed ashore in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Most were missing their heads and hands.
Their killers removed them to prevent identification. Only one body remained entirely intact. It belonged to an Argentine diplomat, and daughter of one of the country's most prominent families. But what really set her death apart from the rest was, she'd been a close friend and supporter of her country's current administration, her presumed killers.
Commenting on her apparent murder, a fellow diplomat said, quote, The revolution has begun to devour its own children, and nobody can do anything about it. Her murder seemed to prove nobody was safe. As for the other 35 bodies, their deaths barely made headlines.
Among them were the bodies of two nuns, last seen helping look for residents of Buenos Aires who had recently gone missing before they disappeared themselves. They went on to be buried in unmarked graves. They remain there, nameless and forgotten, for decades. Victims of a clandestine military conspiracy enacted by an administration no one elected.
Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. You can find us here every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at The Conspiracy Pod. And we would love to hear from you. If you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. For today's episode, our team spoke with a survivor of Argentina's clandestine detention centers.
At 19 years old, Miriam Lewin was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires and thrown into a concentration camp. She survived, became a journalist, and later launched a campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Miriam's story is the subject of the documentary audio series by Orbit Media, Avenger, available on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Miriam was joined in the studio by Orbit's executive producer, Steve Fishman, and a producer and the host of Avenger, Andres Caballero. We are extremely grateful for their time. Stay with us.
Miriam Lewin knew what she wanted to do with her life at an early age.
Miriam's father introduced her to political literature as a child. She immersed herself even further when she joined an anarchist club at 13 years old. She says she and the other members would read books and discuss theories. By college, she was an active member of another political group, one associated with the Peronist movement in Argentina.
Generally speaking, the Peronist movement supported the nationalistic and populist policies of Juan Perón, one of the most influential politicians in Argentine history. He first rose to power in the 1940s, serving as the country's Minister of Labor, gaining support from the working class and labor unions.
He was elected president in 1946, overthrown and exiled in 1956, and then re-elected president in 1973. At the time of his reelection, Argentina was a deeply divided country, and Perón suffered from health problems. His third wife and vice president, Isabel, acted as president when he fell ill.
After his death in 1974, she officially succeeded him in the role, and the country erupted into violence two years later.
Juan Perón himself first came to power as part of a military coup. According to Miriam, the people of Argentina, herself included, believed that a coup could benefit the country, that it might curb some of the ongoing unrest and return a sense of stability. But instead... the military put a lieutenant general named Jorge Rafael Videla in power.
Peronism in Argentina was replaced by a military dictatorship, and Videla launched a nationwide campaign to eliminate those he viewed as political dissidents, which included young activists like Miriam. Suddenly, everything about Miriam's life changed.
The government painted activists like Miriam as perpetrators of violence and justified their own violence by claiming they were fighting a civil war. But Miriam says the responsibilities she held in her group included writing, printing, and handing out leaflets at rallies. She says she was never violent. And even if she had been, that couldn't possibly justify what followed.
There was no judicial process, no right to a fair trial. People were being taken off the streets, transported to clandestine detention centers and never heard from again. They became the desaparecidos, the disappeared. And by the time the state-sanctioned violence was finally over, they would number into the thousands. Early on, after Videla's rise to power, Miriam and her friends went on the run.
Miriam says in the beginning, friends, family, and neighbors offered them support. But eventually, the threats became too great. Even associating with perceived dissidents could result in death. So many of Miriam's friends distanced themselves to keep their loved ones safe. Week after week, their support networks grew smaller. Miriam, at least, had love.
She spent much of her time in hiding with her boyfriend, Juan.
Miriam and Juan wanted to get married, but going to City Hall was too risky. So they held a secret ceremony at a coffee shop above a gas station in Buenos Aires. They exchanged whatever rings they could find and afford and asked a fellow activist to officiate.
Their group had heard rumors about what was happening at the government's secret detention centers, the cruelty and torture inflicted on those captured.
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