On 11 September 1973, the day of Augusto Pinochet’s coup in Chile, Joan Jara’s husband, Victor, a prominent musician and supporter of the socialist president, Salvador Allende, left their home in the capital Santiago to help defend the technical university where he worked. The university was surrounded by the military and police, and Victor was arrested and taken, with hundreds of others, to the Estadio Chile sports stadium. There he was tortured over several days, and his hands mutilated, before being shot more than 40 times.
The next time Joan saw him was in the city mortuary, where a worker recognised his body, came to see Joan and accompanied her to identify him. She organised a hasty burial, and Victor’s remains were placed in a niche in the main Santiago cemetery, to which brave people risked their lives to bring flowers throughout the dictatorship.
