Hundreds of babies of parents killed by Argentina’s military dictatorship were given new families and identities, their true origins kept a secret. Jorgelina was one of them

It took 26 years for Jorgelina Molina Planas to reclaim her lost identity. She had grown up in Argentina as Carolina María Sala, named by her adoptive parents, who had adopted her after her father was shot dead and her mother disappeared in 1977.

Jorgelina is one of an estimated 500 children of 30,000 “disappeared” people to have been kidnapped by the government or born in detention during the military dictatorship that ran the country from 1976 to 1983.

Most of the children were given to military families, who would raise them to be upstanding, law-abiding citizens. These “appropriations” were partly to solve a practical problem: if the real identities of the children were known, there would have to be an explanation for what had happened to their parents.

Since 1977, an organisation called Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo has been searching for the children stolen and illegally adopted during Argentina’s so-called dirty war, so they can be reunited with their surviving biological families.

This year, on 5 August, Jorgelina’s 41st birthday, Estela de Carlotto, the president of Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, announced that she had found her own long-lost grandson, Guido.

For Jorgelina, it was a week of mixed emotions: on 12 August, she visited the church in Catamarca where, 40 years earlier to the day, her father and 15 others were shot dead in the Capilla del Rosario massacre.

Although Jorgelina was one of the first grandchildren to be identified, in 1984, she didn’t feel ready to reclaim her identity until 2010. “I was drawing a picture of myself with my mother,” Jorgelina, an artist, told me as we sat in her home in Buenos Aires. “Suddenly I could hear my mother’s voice saying: ‘Jorgelina …’ I heard it so clearly that, at that moment, I decided to take back my name. For the first time, I signed a picture Jorgelina.”

Jorgelina was born to architectural students Cristina Isabel Planas and José María Molina in Rosario, in 1973. Her birth certificate didn’t name her father because he was in the ERP, the People’s Revolutionary Army, and their association was considered dangerous for her mother.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cristina Planas, Jorgelina’s mother, an architectural student

After José María was murdered in 1974 and his brother Jorge a year later, their mother, Jorgelina’s paternal grandmother, Ana Molina, sought political asylum in Sweden with her only remaining son. When Jorgelina and her mother disappeared in 1977, she dedicated her life to finding them. Ana sent photographs to human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and the Grandmothers, and petitioned the Swedish government.

In 1980, a fellow parishioner of Jorgelina’s adoptive parents recognised her from the pictures. He contacted the Grandmothers. Ana’s fight to recover her granddaughter became focused and she began to write letters to Jorgelina.

“Even though my grandmother knew where I was, my adoptive parents had legal adoption papers,” says Jorgelina. “My maternal grandmother had signed the papers and because my father’s name wasn’t on my birth certificate and DNA testing wasn’t available at that time, Ana couldn’t prove I was her granddaughter.”

Why had her maternal grandmother signed the adoption papers? “Out of fear. When somebody disappeared, to protect other members of their family people wouldn’t make a fuss. This affected thousands because it tore families apart,” she says.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jorgelina’s father, Josema Molina, also an architectural student.

Jorgelina’s adoptive parents weren’t in the military, but they were religious. The adoption was arranged through the Catholic church. In a climate in which the “appropriation” of children was condoned by the military government and the Catholic church, Ana had little hope of getting her granddaughter back. She visited Buenos Aires several times, hoping to meet Jorgelina. In one letter to her, she wrote: “Today is your ninth birthday, and even though I am in Argentina, your adoptive parents won’t let me see you. They say you belong to them …”

On one occasion she saw Jorgelina, but couldn’t approach her: “We looked into each other’s eyes twice. Your adoptive mother was picking you up from school. I was overwhelmed by emotion. I wanted to run up and hug you, but I stood paralysed … It was so painful.” Tragically, Ana died before she could meet Jorgelina. In 2010, years after her death, Jorgelina was sent a suitcase from Sweden full of documents, including original drafts of the many letters her grandmother had sent her – but which she never received.

“I’ve always known I was adopted because I was almost four when my mum disappeared. But my adoptive parents told me that my parents were terrorists and had neglected me.”

Jorgelina had a bad relationship with her adoptive mother who saw her as the replacement for a daughter she had lost at birth. She was closer to her adoptive father. But when she finally summoned up the courage to reclaim her identity after her adoptive mother’s death in 2009, he disowned her. “He wouldn’t accept that I am Jorgelina,” she says. “I haven’t seen him or the rest of my adoptive family since. It’s been hard because I felt he was a good man.”

It was this sort of conflict that resulted in so many families being destroyed by the systematic kidnapping of children during the dictatorship, says Rosa Roisinblit, who is 95 and vice-president of the Grandmothers. “Some recovered grandchildren immediately break with their adoptive families, angry that they have stolen 25 to 35 years of their lives. Others take years to come to terms with the fact that their adoptive parents aren’t who they thought they were.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Estela de Carlotto, president of Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, with her grandson Guido, who was finally identified by the group in August 2014. Photograph: Leo La Valle/AFP/Getty Images

Rosa’s grandson, Guillermo Pérez Roisinblit, was the first of those born in captivity to be found. It took 22 years to learn that her daughter had given birth to a son while she was held in the Naval Academy in Buenos Aires, which was then being used as a torture centre and prison. Five thousand people were taken there, never to be seen again. Many were drugged and thrown out of planes into the Atlantic.

At first, Guillermo refused to believe that he was the son of one of the disappeared. But he could not ignore his striking likeness to the woman who contacted him in 2000: his sister Mariana, whom Rosa had raised after her daughter and son-in-law disappeared in 1978. Guillermo has now taken back his birth name, though he still keeps in touch with his adoptive mother.

Jorgelina doesn’t remember her mother, but some deep-rooted trauma surfaced when she had children herself. “My three pregnancies opened old wounds,” she said. “I missed having a mother to ask for advice. Later, when I took my children to kindergarten, I experienced inexplicable pain at the separation. It took years of therapy to realise I was the one hurting, not them.”

Recently, Jorgelina had her identity confirmed through DNA testing. She has been reunited with her extended biological family, including her elder half-brother Damian, her mother’s son, and she also got to know her maternal grandmother before her death in 2012.

Jorgelina now uses art to continue her fight for justice. In 2013, she took her exhibition Geografías Interiores Reconstrucción to Casa della Memoria in Rome, at the invitation of the Argentinian embassy. “They are running a campaign for the search for disappeared grandchildren because several may have been taken to Europe,” she says.

In June, Limoges University mounted an exhibition of her work in France, and Jorgelina gave talks about the search for the grandchildren and the consequences of state terrorism during the dictatorship in Argentina. “For me, art is the pathway to reclaim my identity – and I want to help others to reclaim theirs,” she says.

Jorgelina is particularly committed to the search for Clara Anahí, granddaughter of Chicha Mariani, one of the Grandmothers’ founders, who has been missing since 1976. “Chicha was a close friend of my grandmother Ana and helped her find me,” says Jorgelina. “The search for the missing grandchildren requires total commitment. We can all help others who are questioning their identity by encouraging them to approach the Grandmothers.”