Antisemitism in Argentina
In 1902 Argentina passed a Residency Law limiting the number of Jewish immigrants,[6] and newspapers like La Nacion incorporated anti-Semitic rhetoric into their stories.
During Tragic Week the Argentine police force went into Jewish neighborhoods, dragged Jews from their homes into the streets, and beat, shot, and killed them for supposedly spreading subversive ideas like communism and socialism.
Although there is no evidence to support this theory, it was thought that Jews devised the plan for the strike back Russia and came to Argentina to spread communist and Bolshevist ideas.
Once the general strikes commenced, the elite, as well as a civilian group called the Guardica Blanca (White Guard) began attacking foreigners (Mirelman 62).
Jews were violently attacked by gangs, women were forced to eat their own excrement, and “‘Poor girls of fourteen or fifteen… [were] raped’” (Mirelman 63).
Later in 1931 the ACG featured the swastika in newspapers, gave the Hitler salute at publicly advertised rallies, and were reported by Argentine authorities for assaulting suspected Jews.
For priests Gustavo Franceschi, director of the Catholic journal Criterio, and Leonardo Castellani, pogroms were no longer unimaginable solutions.
[15] Father Virgilio Fillipo in radio transmissions, articles in Clarinada, and pamphlets distilled Jews to the physical stereotype of big, hooked noses and wavy hair.
[16] These figures similarly interpreted "Jewish societal control" propaganda as not only radical greed, but principally as an attack on morality and family structure, the pillars of religion.
[17] The charge of sexual promiscuity would gain further intensity in 1930, when members of the Jewish gang Zwi Migdal were arrested, and consequently publicized, for bringing prostitutes from Europe into Argentine society.
[21] But Perón never allowed antisemitic rhetoric to evolve further, denying requests for extreme measures within his administration such as concentration camps.
[25] For example, Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim Van Ribbentrop, who was part of the team responsible for expelling all Jews from German territory, identified one-hundred Argentine Jews in German territory, and contacted Argentine ambassadors and ministers for their repatriation to Argentina, seeking to protect them from Hitler's final solution.
[26] Moreover, appointed as head of Immigration under Perón, and subsequently in charge of enforcing Directive Eleven, was Santiago Peralta, an Argentine Nazi.
The Jewish community, outraged, appealed directly to Perón, who claimed to look into the situation but in-actuality did nothing, resulting in the Jamaica's departure with the passengers onboard.
[30] While in exile in Spain, Perón seemingly verified Schellenberg's story, explaining in cassette recordings that were eventually transcribed how and why he helped Nazis escape to Argentina.
[35] The Tacuara also sought to imitate fascist Germany by continuing their propaganda: placing posters with the words "Jews to the Crematorium!
Honor to Eichman" around Buenos Aires[36] Many Tacuara also had links to the American Ku Klux Klan, and would later become members of the 1976 military junta.
[37] The other group, the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (The Triple A), was an extreme right version of the Tacuara that sought organized assassinations of Jews.
[38] Many Triple A members were former Tacuara, and the group later started a magazine for their propaganda called El Caudillo, which was subsidized by Perón's and his wife's administrations in the 1970s.
[39] From 1976 to 1983 the military junta in-charge engaged in what is referred to as the "dirty war" against its own citizens, in which between ten-thousand to thirty-thousand Argentines were kidnapped, tortured, and killed—or "disappeared" according to the government.
According to DAIA, the country's Jewish umbrella organization, the majority of antisemitic incidents that year occurred in the three months following the Hamas attack.
While a large number of incidents took place online, in-person antisemitic acts also surged, with the DAIA report highlighting graffiti such as “Hamas” and crossed-out Stars of David on school property.
