- Alberto Nisman, Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 20, 2009
On the morning of July 18, 1994, Hana Cohen headed from her apartment to the nearby AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires to run an errand. Edith Szerman Kogos walked to a bank a few blocks away. Jose Caro shopped in a store.
The boom of an explosion interrupted their activities, piercing the hubbub of daily life in the Argentinian capital and destroying the building housing the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association. The blast killed 85 people.
For Cohen, Kogos, Caro and other Argentinian Jews now living in Israel, attending the dedication here Wednesday evening of a sculpture memorializing the AMIA victims and the man who died while investigating the bombing, Alberto Nisman, was personal. Within minutes of the explosion, the trio arrived onsite. All had been in AMIA scores of times and knew some of the dead and wounded.
The gathering at an arts center in this northern coastal city came on the second anniversary of Nisman’s death. It attracted approximately 200 people, nearly all immigrants from Argentina and other South American countries. Many expressed anger and skepticism toward the corruption they believe taints their native land’s political system and makes solving crimes like the AMIA bombing unlikely.