Eva perons body disappeared for 17 years

In response, Eva crippled the charity by eliminating its government funding and replacing it with her own foundation that financed the construction of schools, orphanages, hospitals and other social services. By , Eva's hectic pace drove her to the sickbed. After becoming first lady at 27, she had suffered from occasional fainting spells and stomach pains.

Eva perons body disappeared for 17 years

But after doctors diagnosed her with uterine cancer, Eva's health quickly deteriorated. Her public appearances became scarce, and she became drastically thin and bedridden at barely 33 years of age. Pedro Ara. Ara was commissioned with the task of embalming the first lady's corpse, and to ensure the highest-quality embalming, he had to begin the process within hours after her death.

While Ara prepared the body for lying in state, Eva's hairstylist dyed her hair blond one last time, and her personal manicurist painted her fingernails with clear polish. Unlike most embalmed corpses, Ara left Eva's internal organs intact. Those 13 days of exposure during the public visitation worried Ara because he hadn't yet prepared the corpse for permanent preservation.

Afterward, a military convoy transported the body to a guarded room at the headquarters of the National Confederation of Labor. There, Ara commenced to mummify Eva Peron's body, pumping it full of alcohol, glycerin and preservative chemicals and sealing the skin with a plasticlike film. Accounts of people who later saw and touched Eva's embalmed corpse marveled at its softness and its petite size, which likely resulted from the drastic weight loss caused by the cancer.

By that time, Juan Peron's government was on the verge of collapse. The postwar industrial boom spurred a vast migration of workers from the plains into the cities, giving way to sprawling slums. Drought sapped the country's wheat supply, which hurt cattle production as well. Without ample supply of those commodities to trade for natural resources, such as coal and oil, the economic infrastructure was crumbling, and unemployment was on the rise [source: Barnes ].

In , an anti-Peron military group led by Gen. Following the coup, the revolutionaries sought to destroy all signs of the Perons' tenure, including the early stages of Eva's burial monument. The corpse, which was still under Dr. Ara's obsessively diligent care, posed a particular problem for the military leaders. If the pro-Peron factions got their hands on Eva's corpse, they could use it to rally the masses against the new government.

Even in death, Evita's cult of personality remained a potent political force. Burial duty fell to Col. The three-time president of Argentina , and was the father of Peronism, a multifaceted ideological current with social overtones, and a grand figure in the country's political life. Based on the best-selling novel by Argentine author Tomas Eloy Martinez, the seven-episode miniseries directed by Rodrigo Garcia Barcha and Alejandro Maci once again sheds light on an aspect of history little explored by fiction, the details of which are less known to Argentines than the life of "Eva.

Intended for a wide audience, with an international release date of July 26, the series shot in Buenos Aires reveals "the obsession that men can have to take women who seem unattainable and control them," often through their bodies, said its producer, Mexican actress Salma Hayek. It also reflects the importance of the figure of Eva Peron — played by the Uruguayan actress Natalia Oreiro — still a topic of fiction and a political reference 70 years after her death.

You have The rest is for subscribers only. Although first ladies often have their own "pet projects," Houston Chronicle reports that Evita was much more than a figurehead, calling her "the most influential first lady" in the history of Argentina. In addition to founding and running her own charitable organization, Evita also headed Argentina's Ministries of Health and Labor, and founded the Female Peronist Party which, as reported by Timeline Index , became Argentina's first female-only political party.

However, she faced strong opposition from the country's elite and military officials. As she was also diagnosed with cervical cancer, and her health began to decline, Evita was forced to withdraw her candidacy. The closed coffin of Juan Peron lay close by. He remembers this was a complicated job. She had one part where there was a wound - I couldn't say if it was made by a weapon, but it was caused by something.

That part of the body looked pretty ugly. Domingo thought the remains might have been squeezed into a coffin that was not big enough. It's an offence against the corpse. But it wasn't my job to say what caused the damage, although it definitely had no bullet wounds. But essentially, the original embalming work had stood the test of time. While he worked on the restoration of Evita's remains, the government of Isabel Peron began to plan the building of a national monument - an Altar of the Fatherland - that would contain both her and the closed coffin of Juan Peron.

It was never to be. When the restoration was complete, the corpse was once again briefly displayed to the public next to her husband's coffin. Photos from the time show a queue outside Los Olivos, but nothing like the two million people who had filed past her coffin when she died in Domingo Tellechea left Eva Peron looking unmarked and serene - as if she was resting peacefully.

But he would not sleep so easily. Domingo says he did not feel safe at home without a weapon to guard his children. In , another military coup deposed the government of Isabel Peron and Argentina would descend into its darkest and bloodiest days - thousands of people would disappear. Like so many other Argentines, Domingo Tellechea went into exile.