Eva perons body disappeared for 17 years

Intended for a wide audience, with an international release date of July 26, the series shot in Buenos Aires reveals "the obsession that men can have to take women who seem unattainable and control them," often through their bodies, said its producer, Mexican actress Salma Hayek. It also reflects the importance of the figure of Eva Peron — played by the Uruguayan actress Natalia Oreiro — still a topic of fiction and a political reference 70 years after her death.

You have The rest is for subscribers only. Nous vous conseillons de modifier votre mot de passe. Videos Investigations Explainers. However, it is unknown whether any of the damage was intentional. Restoration expert Domingo Tellechea said a majority of the flaws were only superficial, because Dr. Pedro Ara's work was "very well done.

Evita's Body Was Stolen. Pedro Ara. Ara was commissioned with the task of embalming the first lady's corpse, and to ensure the highest-quality embalming, he had to begin the process within hours after her death. While Ara prepared the body for lying in state, Eva's hairstylist dyed her hair blond one last time, and her personal manicurist painted her fingernails with clear polish.

Unlike most embalmed corpses, Ara left Eva's internal organs intact. Those 13 days of exposure during the public visitation worried Ara because he hadn't yet prepared the corpse for permanent preservation. Afterward, a military convoy transported the body to a guarded room at the headquarters of the National Confederation of Labor. There, Ara commenced to mummify Eva Peron's body, pumping it full of alcohol, glycerin and preservative chemicals and sealing the skin with a plasticlike film.

Accounts of people who later saw and touched Eva's embalmed corpse marveled at its softness and its petite size, which likely resulted from the drastic weight loss caused by the cancer. By that time, Juan Peron's government was on the verge of collapse. The postwar industrial boom spurred a vast migration of workers from the plains into the cities, giving way to sprawling slums.

Eva perons body disappeared for 17 years

Drought sapped the country's wheat supply, which hurt cattle production as well. Without ample supply of those commodities to trade for natural resources, such as coal and oil, the economic infrastructure was crumbling, and unemployment was on the rise [source: Barnes ]. In , an anti-Peron military group led by Gen. Following the coup, the revolutionaries sought to destroy all signs of the Perons' tenure, including the early stages of Eva's burial monument.

The corpse, which was still under Dr. Ara's obsessively diligent care, posed a particular problem for the military leaders. If the pro-Peron factions got their hands on Eva's corpse, they could use it to rally the masses against the new government. Even in death, Evita's cult of personality remained a potent political force. Burial duty fell to Col.

Carlos Eugenio Moori Koening. Koening said later that he never ended up burying the coffin due to eerie circumstances involved with the attempted burial, most notably mysterious flowers and candles appearing beside the parked truck in which he was transporting the coffin [source: Fraser and Navarro ]. Instead, he hid the coffin for a year in the attic of the military intelligence building.

Another story claims that he hid the coffin in his deputy's apartment, and that deputy accidentally shot his pregnant wife after thinking he heard an intruder breaking in to steal the body [source: Barnes ]. Once officials realized that Koening hadn't fulfilled his orders, Eva went on the move again. If he accepted, Domingo Tellechea knew there could be dangerous consequences.

I knew it could bring me problems," says Domingo. The people who made the body disappear in were military officers who took part in the coup that forced Juan Peron into exile. It was taken in the middle of the night from the Buenos Aires headquarters of the CGT - the largest Peronist trade union in Argentina - where it had remained since the embalming process was finished.

Those who supported Juan Peron believed its removal was part of a systematic attempt to erase Peronism from Argentina, and Evita was the movement's most powerful symbol. When she was alive she had generated huge popularity for Peron's government, primarily through her work for the poor. But while she had been adored by millions, she was loathed and despised in equal measure by anti-Peronists.

Some of them maintained Evita's embalmed remains had to be removed for their own safety. Once the corpse was taken, its improbable odyssey began. It probably spent time in a van parked on the streets of the capital, behind a cinema screen in Buenos Aires and inside the city's waterworks. Crowds at a huge rally called on her to become vice-president.

Almost certainly, it was stored in the offices of Military Intelligence. But wherever it went, it is said that flowers and lighted candles appeared. Clearly a secure, long-term solution was needed. In , with the covert assistance of the Vatican, the remains of Eva Peron were taken to Italy and buried in a Milan cemetery under a false name. Evita was far from Argentina, but she was not forgotten.

Her power as a symbol of resistance grew.