- [Pedro Lange-Churion] When
I first began to approach
this project,
and when I met these women
and when I was able to speak
with them at length about their pain,
about what happened to them,
about the crime that the state
had committed against them,
I couldn't think of anything more cruel.
The children that they went
to bear were taken away
from them in hospitals and
maternity wards throughout Spain.
I thought, "Okay, I'm
going to photograph them."
So I began to look at
representations of the Virgin Mary.
This notion of a very dark
background out of which emerged
a subject that was leaked
as if it leaked from within,
and they would shine, right?
(somber music)
- [Woman] Those two are mothers as well.
These are daughter and
sister looking for brother,
sister looking for twin sister.
They're parents.
So they actually claim that
their baby was stolen in 1981.
And these photographs were
taken at the cemetery.
It's part of the process of searching —
places they have to go is the
cemetery to look for records.
Sometimes they find records,
and sometimes they don't.
- [Pedro] We rented a studio in Madrid.
The victims came to have
their photographs taken.
I remember being moved
by their need to speak
about what happened to them.
It felt as if they were confessing,
as if they were experiencing
a sort of catharsis
in telling me what had happened to them,
as if justice began to
happen at the moment
they could begin to speak
about their suffering,
as if justice began at the very moment
their voices could be finally heard.
So these women who had not been seen,
it was very important
for me that they be seen.
(woman speaking Spanish)
