Argentinian campaigner who led the families of the missing, dies aged 106

They were sent to Esma, a former school which became notorious as the largest detention centre in Buenos Aires. Her tormentors kept Patricia alive long enough for her to give birth to her son in a basement on 15th November. The baby was sent to Air Force civilian worker Francisco Gómez and his wife to raise as their own son. The bodies of Patricia and José were never found. Like many in her movement Roisinblit demanded to know the whereabouts of her missing relatives. Mariana was first given to her paternal grandparents, before being returned to her.

Some 30,000 people between the ages of 16 and 35, who opposed the 1976 Argentine coup d'état are believed to have disappeared. Around 30 per cent were women, some 3 per cent  of them pregnant. They were killed or forcibly disappeared during Argentina’s so called Dirty War to eradicate the regime’s opponents between 1976 and 1983.

With the help of the United States geneticist Mary-Claire King, the work of the Grandmothers has led to the location of some 25 per cent of the estimated 500 children kidnapped or born in detention centres. Many of their parents were thrown into the sea on notorious "death flights". The adoptive families tended to be supporters of the regime, deliberately selected to avoid the threat of a rising generation of political opponents. They usually concealed the children’s original identities.

The Grandmothers' work led to the creation of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team and the establishment of the National Bank of Genetic Data. Aided by breakthroughs in genetic testing, the Grandmothers succeeded in returning 31 children to their biological families.

But there were some 13 other cases where adoptive and biological families agreed to jointly raise the children after they had been identified. Others remain subject to court custody battles between families. Since July, 2023 133 grandchildren have been found.

Rosa Tarlovsky was born in 1919 in Moises Ville, a Jewish immigrant town in central Argentina, and became an obstetrician. She moved to Buenos Aires in 1949 and married Benjamin Roisinblit in 1951.

It was through the work of the Grandmothers and the help of Mariana, that in 2000, following DNA tests, Roisinblit was reunited with her grandson, Guillermo, who had been adopted by an air-force intelligence officer, Francisco Gomez and his wife, Teodora Jofre. He was among 140 people that the Grandmothers group has reunited with their families.

In 2016, at the age of 97, Rosa was in court to see Guillermo’s adoptive parents jailed. Roisinblit had also fought for decades to see the military personnel involved in her daughter’s kidnapping brought to justice. She was rewarded later that year when the former air force chief at the time of the kidnapping, Omar Graffigna, was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for the abduction and torture of Patricia and José. Hundreds of other soldiers and leaders stood trial for human rights abuses, some of which Roisinblit attended with her grandchildren.

“The pain is still there, this wound never heals… But to say I’m stopping? No, I’ll never stop,” she told AFP news agency at the time.

But many families are still awaiting news of their missing relatives. The Grandmothers group believes there are 300 “stolen grandchildren” — born in captivity or kidnapped with their parents — yet to be found.

“We fight, but the heroes are our children who rose up against a fierce dictatorship and gave their lives for a better country,” Roisinblit said.

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo campaign group praised Roisinblit’s work on behalf of the missing children: “We only have words of gratitude for her dedication, her solidarity and the love with which she searched for the grandsons and granddaughters until the very end.”

Guillermo, who later changed his surname to Perez Roisinblit, became a human rights lawyer determined to preserve his grandmother’s legacy by continuing to the work with the Grandmothers. In his tribute to her he said:

“My grandma has passed away, and beyond the sadness I feel, it comforts me to think that after 46 years she is reunited with my mom and with her great love, my grandfather Benjamin.”

Rosa Roisinblit: born: August 15, 1919. Died September 6, 2025