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A FORCE EVEN AFTER DEATH

Eva “Evita” Peron was only 33 when she died; after hearing of her death, Argentina went into instantaneous mourning. When her immaculately preserved body was placed on display, 16 people were crushed to death by the hysterical throngs eager to get a last glimpse of their beloved first lady. Another 4,000 were treated for injuries, and a 20- block, four-abreast line formed for days and had to be fed by army field kitchens.


Eva Peron's (Evita) tomb at Buenos Aires "La Recoleta" Cementery
Photo Credit: Anders Pearson

In early August the corpse was moved to the Confederation of Labor headquarters where it remained for three years, while plans were made for a tomb rivaling the Statue of Liberty. The tomb was partially finished when Juan Peron was overthrown and fled the country in 1955. The new government was extremely anti-Peronistic and felt that if the body was kept in the country it would become a symbol of Peronism.

It is here that the story differs in various accounts. Generally it is thought that the new regime had the body sent to Milan, Italy, and buried under the name of Maria Maggi. Other accounts have it that the body was loaded into a crate marked “radio equipment” and stashed in the office of the army’s information chief until he was transferred in 1956. The crate then seemed to disappear, its whereabouts known only to a small group of military officers.

In the late 1960s, Argentine journalist Thomas Eloy Martinez learned the closely guarded secret: Evita’s body had NOT been sent to Italy, but to Bonn, Germany as part of an Argentine military attache’s household effects, and was buried either in the embassy basement or in the garden of the ambassador’s residence. Martinez did some digging—literally and figuratively—on the embassy property, but was too late. The body had already been moved and reburied in that cemetery in Milan.

The legend of Evita refused to be suppressed, however, and in 1971 Evita’s body was turned over to Juan Peron, who was living in exile in Madrid with his third wife, Isabel. Peron returned to power in Argentina in 1973, but died July 1, 1974. His wife Isabel succeeded him, and when she did she called for the return of Evita’s body to be displayed next to the coffin of Peron.

After a long and twisted 22-year journey, Eva “Evita” Duarte de Peron’s body was entombed in the small, black Duarte family mausoleum in the Recoleta Cemetery, where it remains today. She is shut away from view within the mausoleum, but visitors regularly bring fresh flowers to her, placing them in the grillwork of the vault. Plaques placed there in her memory feature two of her most famous quotes. “Don’t cry for me, Argentina” is, of course, one of them; the other—equally as evocative: “I will return, and I will be millions.”