O perigo estrangeiro: estudo de casos de perseguição e resistência política no Brasil e na Argentina

Abstract

The objective of this study is to analyze the impact of dictatorships in Brazil and Argentina between 1964 and 1985 on the lives of European immigrants and their descendants. The research focuses on five specific cases, investigating the trajectories of these individuals, understanding them as protagonists in the struggle against the authoritarian practices institutionalized by the dictatorial regimes. The study seeks to understand the dynamics and movements of these individuals within the social and political contexts of Brazil and Argentina in the 1960s and 1970s. Both Brazil and Argentina received a large number of immigrants after 1945, including those who were affected by the war or by Nazi, fascist, and Stalinist regimes. During the 1960s and 1970s, many of these foreigners were already settled with their families, but they faced a turbulent political context characterized by anti-communist and conservative discourses influenced by far-right ideologies. The research utilizes various sources, such as documents from public archives, institutions, digital libraries, and newspaper archives. The Brazilian and Argentine dictatorships established in 1964 and 1976, respectively, deeply affected foreigners, especially those of Jewish origin, resulting in repression, persecution, censorship, violence, and social marginalization, conditions exacerbated by the transnational relations among Southern Cone countries in the so-called Operation Condor. It is believed that there were practices of xenophobia and anti-Semitism during the dictatorships, particularly in Argentina. In conclusion, the impact of the military regimes on the lives of foreigners was further compounded by the history of persecution experienced by their families in Europe during the Nazi-fascist and Stalinist periods.