Alice Domon - Life

Life

Alice Domon was born in Charquemont in France's Doubs region. As a girl she entered the Paris Foreign Missions Society, which invited her to Argentina in 1967, installed in Hurlingham and Morón at the industrial cord of Buenos Aires, to orient to the catechesis for handicapped persons.

Domon was a member of the group directed by Father Ismael Calcagno, first cousin of Jorge Rafael Videla, the dictator in power at the time of the kidnapping and murder. Alice Domon was assigned there along with Léonie Duquet with whom she established a deep friendship. Paradoxically, Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon knew Videla because Alexander requested his aid for the attendance of his son, a handicapped boy whom Alice and Léonie helped, taught, and catechized in the House of the Charity of Morón.

Alice Domon was dedicated to her social work with the inhabitants of poverty-stricken shanty towns. In 1971 she went to Corrientes in order to collaborate with the Ligas Agrarias organization, that was organized by the small producers of cotton.

When the military coup of March 24, 1976, installed a regime founded on state terrorism, Domon made the decision to actively participate in human rights organizations. Upon her return to Corrientes she found lodging at Léonie Duquet's house.

In December 1977, Sisters Alice and Léonie, along with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and other human rights activists, prepared a request for the names of those who disappeared and for the government to divulge their whereabouts. The reply was publicized in the newspaper La Nación on December 10, 1977, the same day Alice Domon disappeared. The name Gustavo Niño was found among the signatures as a false name, used by navy captain Alfredo Astiz, to infiltrate the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in May.

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