Alice Domon, S.M.E., also known as Sister Alicia, (23 September 1937 – 17 or 18 December 1977) was one of two French missionary

Religious Sister A religious sister (abbreviated: Sr.) in the Catholic Church is a woman who has taken public vows in a religious institute dedicated to apostolic works, as distinguished from a nun who lives a cloistered monastic life dedicated to prayer and ...

s in Argentina, members of the Sisters of the Foreign Missions based in Seysses, France, to be " disappeared" in December 1977 by the military dictatorship of the

National Reorganization Process The National Reorganization Process ( PRN; often simply , "the Process") was the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. In Argentina it is often known simply as the ("last military junta"), ("last military dictatorship") ...

. She was among a dozen people associated with the

Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo () is an Argentina, Argentine human rights association formed in response to abuses by the National Reorganization Process, the military dictatorship by Jorge Rafael Videla. Initially the association worked to find ...

, a human rights group, who were kidnapped and taken to the secret detention center at ESMA. According to witnesses who saw Domon there, over a period of about 10 days she was interrogated and tortured, forced to write a letter claiming participation in guerrilla group opposing the government, and photographed in a staged setting in front of a Montoneros banner. That group of detainees, including Sister Léonie Duquet, was "transferred", a euphemism for being taken out and killed. Bodies washed up on beaches south of Buenos Aires in December 1977 and were quickly buried in mass graves, but a March 1978

Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse (; AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. With 2,400 employees of 100 nationalities, AFP has an editorial presence in 260 c ...

article reported that the bodies of the missing two French Sisters and others associated with the Mothers were believed to have been among them. DNA testing later confirmed one of the bodies to be that of Duquet. Domon's remains, however, have never been found. In 2000, a small plaza in Buenos Aires was named ''"Hermana Alice Domon y Hermana Leonie Duquet,"'' in honor of the Sisters. Their lives are celebrated in an annual commemoration at the

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

of San Cristobal, where they had worked and where the remains of Duquet and several Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo are buried. In 2011, Alfredo Astiz, who had infiltrated the Mothers of the Plaza and organized the abduction of the twelve in December 1977, was convicted ''in absentía'' and sentenced to life imprisonment for that and other

crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as ...

. For his torturing at ESMA, he had been nicknamed "The Blond Angel of Death."

Life

Alice Domon was born in Charquemont in France's

Doubs Doubs (, ; ; ) is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in Eastern France. Named after the river Doubs, it had a population of 543,974 in 2019.Paris Foreign Missions Society. It invited her to Argentina in 1967, where she lived in Hurlingham and Morón, of the industrial corridor of

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

. She taught catechism to handicapped persons and worked with the poor. Domon was a member of a group directed by Father Ismael Calcagno, first cousin of Jorge Rafael Videla, the dictator in power from 1976 to 1981, at the time of both the kidnapping and the murder. Alice Domon and her fellow nun Léonie Duquet were introduced to Videla because he needed assistance for his son Alejandro, a disabled child whom they taught and looked after in the Casa de la Caridad in Morón. In Buenos Aires the two sisters devoted their time to social work amongst the inhabitants of the city’s poorest townships. Alice Domon was assigned there along with Léonie Duquet, a French

religious sister A religious sister (abbreviated: Sr.) in the Catholic Church is a woman who has taken public vows in a religious institute dedicated to apostolic works, as distinguished from a nun who lives a cloistered monastic life dedicated to prayer and ...

with whom she established a deep friendship. Domon was dedicated to her social work with the inhabitants of shanty towns. In 1971 she went to Corrientes in order to collaborate with the Ligas Agrarias organization, which was formed by the small producers of

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

. Following the military coup of 24 March 1976, the junta began extreme repression of political opponents and state terrorism. Domon decided to get involved with human rights organizations. Upon her return to Corrientes, she lodged at Léonie Duquet's house. In December 1977, Sisters Alice and Léonie, along with the

and other human rights activists, prepared a request for the names of those who disappeared and for the government to divulge their whereabouts. The reply was publicized in the newspaper ''

La Nación ''La Nación'' () is an Argentine daily newspaper. As the country's leading conservative newspaper, ''La Nación''s main competitor is the more liberal ''Clarín (Argentine newspaper), Clarín''. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for Argen ...

'' on 10 December 1977, the day Alice Domon disappeared. The name Gustavo Niño was found among the signatures as a false name, used in May by navy captain Alfredo Astiz, to infiltrate the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

"Disappearance": kidnapping, torture, and murder

Between Thursday 8 and Saturday 10 December 1977, a group under the command of Alfredo Astiz, a Marine captain and intelligence officer, kidnapped a group of 12 people connected with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Among them were the French nuns Alice Domon and Léonie Duquet, along with Azucena Villaflor and two other founders of the

. Astiz had infiltrated the group, posing as a family member of a ''desaparacido'' and using a false name. Alice Domon and most of the women were abducted from the Church of Santa Cruz, where the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo used to meet. It is located in the San Cristóbal district within the city of Buenos Aires. Sister Alice was taken directly to the secret detention center in the Navy Petty-Officers School of Mechanics (ESMA), under the control of the

Argentine Navy The Argentine Navy (ARA; ). This forms the basis for the navy's ship prefix "ARA". is the navy of Argentina. It is one of the three branches of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, together with the Argentine Army, Army and the Argentine ...

. She was said to have been put in detention wearing a hood that cut off all sight. She was held for approximately 10 days, during which she was constantly tortured and interrogated. Horacio Domingo Maggio and Lisandro Raúl Cubas, survivors of detention at the ESMA, related what they knew on the subject in testimony to the national commission in 1985:

The same thing happened to the French nuns Alice Domon and Leonie Renée Duquet. I had the chance to speak with Sister Alice personally, she had already been taken along with Sister Renée to the third floor of the Officers' Mess in the ESMA, that was where I found her captive. This happened around December 11 or 12. I remember that was when she had been kidnapped at the church. I was soon aware of 13 people; the Sisters were weak and badly beaten; Alice already needed two guards to carry and maintain her in the bathroom. I asked if they had been tortured and they answered yes: they had been tied to a bed completely naked and stabbed all over their body; in addition they told of later being forced to write a letter to the Leader of their Congregation, they wrote it in French under constant torture, afterward they both had a photo taken of them seated next to a table. The pictures were taken to the basement of the same building where the torture took place: the basement of the Officers' Mess. They were both at ESMA about 10 days, tortured and interrogated. Later the eleven remaining people were transferred. The rumours mention the haste of their departure; this indicates the murders of the same (Testimony of Horacio Domingo Maggio, File #4450).''Capítulo II, Víctimas, E. Religiosos''
, Informe Nunca Más, CONADEP, 1985

Around 10 or 12 of them were taken down, including the French Sister Alice Domon. Later Sister Rennée Duquet, from the same religious congregation as Alice, was also taken to ESMA. They put Sister René in "Capuchita". Sisters Alice and Renée were savagely tortured, especially Alice. Their conduct was admirable. Up until their worst moments of pain, Sister Alice, who was in "Capucha", asked for the luck of her compadres and, at the pinnacle of irony, she emphasized the "little blond boy", who was none other than Frigate Lieutenant Astiz (who had infiltrated the group, passing himself off as a relative of a ''desaparecido''. At gunpoint they made Sister Alice write a letter in her own handwriting. ...As the crowning glory of this parody, they took pictures (of both Sisters) in the photo lab of the ESMA, in which they appeared seated at a table with a flag of the Montoneros Party behind them. Sisters Alice and Renée were "transferred" and, along with them, the others that were captured in their group. (Testimony of Lisandro Raúl Cubas, File #6794).

As the two Catholic sisters, Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon, were French nationals, their "disappearances" generated an international scandal, especially with

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, which repeatedly tried to trace what had happened to them. The Argentine government was unresponsive to their inquiries. The Army Chief and Junta Member Emilio Massera tried to make it appear as if both nuns had been kidnapped by the Montoneros leftist

guerrilla Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, Partisan (military), partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include Children in the military, recruite ...

organization. To this end, officers forced Domon under torture to write a letter to her superior in her order, in French, saying that she had been abducted by a group opposed to the administration of General Jorge Videla. The torturers took a picture of the two nuns seated in front of a Montoneros flag and sent it to a national newspaper. In the photograph, taken in the basement of the ESMA, the two women showed obvious physical signs of torture; copies were sent to the French press. On 15 December 1977 ''

'' published a notice from the EFE news agency entitled ''"Vivas y con buena salud"'' (Alive and in good health). The article reported that the Mother Superior of the Congregation in France said that the Sisters Léonie and Alice had been detained but remained alive and in good health. She said the information came from the Papal Nuncio in

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. On either 17 or 18 December 1977, the two sisters and the rest of their group were ''trasladadas'' ("transferred": a euphemism used by the military when murdering dissidents) to the military airport in Buenos Aires. They were put in a Marine plane and thrown out of the plane while still alive, landing in the sea off the coast of Santa Teresita, where they died as soon as they hit the water. As an example of the

black comedy Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally ...

of the marines linked with the repression during the

Dirty War The Dirty War () is the name used by the military junta or National Reorganization Process, civic-military dictatorship of Argentina () for its period of state terrorism in Argentina from 1974 to 1983. During this campaign, military and secu ...

, they occasionally made reference to the nuns as the "flying nuns," making reference to the American TV series.

Later prosecution of crimes

After democracy was restored, the government held a national commission to collect testimony from survivors about ''desaparacedos'' and treatment at the hands of military and security forces. In 1985, the government tried the top former officers of the military in the Trial of the Juntas. Investigations had been made of hundreds of other officers. Under threat of a military coup, the Congress passed legislation known as the "Pardon Laws" in 1986 and 1987, ending prosecution and establishing a kind of amnesty for acts on both sides during the Dirty War. During this period, in 1990, Captain Alfredo Astiz was convicted in France of kidnapping Duquet and Domon, and sentenced ''

in absentia ''In Absentia'' is the seventh studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released on 24 September 2002. The album marked several changes for the band, with it being the first with new drummer Gavin Harrison and the f ...

'' to life in prison by the Appellate Court in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. At that time, the bodies of the two women had not been found, so he could not be charged with murder.Agence France-Presse, "Léonie Duquet, missionária francesa, vítima do anjo louro da morte" ("Leonie Duquet, French missionary, victim of the 'Blond Angel of Death'")
''Ultimo Noticias'', 29 August 2005, , accessed 10 June 2013 In 2003 during the administration of President Nestor Kirchner, Congress repealed the Pardon Laws. The Argentine Supreme Court ruled they were unconstitutional, and the government re-opened cases of war crimes during the Dirty War. In 2006 Miguel Etcholatz was the first former officer convicted and sentenced to life in a new series of trials. Prosecutions continued. Astiz also went to trial. On 27 October 2011, Alfredo Astiz was convicted by an Argentinian court and sentenced to life imprisonment for

committed during the

.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15472396 , Latin America, BBC In 2012 an Argentinian prosecutor filed charges against the Dutch-Argentinian pilot Julio Poch for flying the navy plane which supposedly dumped Domon, Duquet and three other women into the Atlantic Ocean.

Evidence in later prosecutions

After the restoration of democracy in 1984, the investigations of the

National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (Spanish: ', CONADEP) was an Argentine organization created by President Raúl Alfonsín on 15 December 1983, shortly after his inauguration, to investigate the fate of the (victims of force ...

and the 1985 Trial of the Juntas led to the exhuming of graves in the cemetery of General Lavalle, searching for evidence related to war crimes. Skeletal remains were found belonging to some cadavers found in 1977 and later on the beaches of San Bernardo and Lucila del Mar. The remains were used in the trial against the Juntas and then stored in sixteen bags. From that point on, Judge Horacio Cattani began to accumulate cases about ''

desaparecidos An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person with the support or acquiescence of a State (polity), state followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate or whereabouts with the i ...

''. Passage in 1986 and 1987 of the ''

Ley de Punto Final Ley may refer to: Toponyms * Ley (landform), name for a crag, rock or cliff in the north German language area * Ley (crater), crater on the Moon * Ley, Moselle, commune in France * Ley Hill, hill in England People * Ley Matampi (born 19 ...

'' and the '' Ley de Obediencia Debida'', respectively, caused an end to the investigation. By 1995, Cattani had collected an archive of 40 square meters containing potential answers to questions about the missing bodies. In July 2005, the Chief of Police of General Lavalle informed Cattani that they had identified more unmarked graves in the town cemetery. Judge Cattani ordered that new excavations be carried out by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, who discovered two rows of graves side-by-side. They found eight skeletons: five female, two male, and one uncertain (classified as "probably male"). As a result of forensic DNA studies in August 2005, the five female remains were found to belong to five of the women captured between 8 and 10 December 1977: Azucena Villaflor, María Ponce de Bianco, Esther Ballestrino de Careaga, Angela Auad, and Sister Léonie Duquet. All of them have since been buried in the garden of the Santa Cruz church in Buenos Aires. No evidence has been found for the remains of Alice Domon.

United States government internal reports

Secret government documents from the

United States Government The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct ...

declassified in 2002 show that the US Ambassador to Argentina advised the State Department in March 1978 that bodies washed up on beaches of

Buenos Aires Province Buenos Aires, officially the Buenos Aires Province, is the largest and most populous Provinces of Argentina, Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of the province an ...

likely included those of missing French nationals, the nuns Alice Domon and Léonie Duquet; as well as three founders of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo: Azucena Villaflor, Esther Ballestrino and María Ponce, and two other mothers. As noted in the memo, this was based on reports by

, published in French and international papers on 28 March 1978 and a reliable source within the government. Apparently, this information was kept secret. This is documented in formerly classified Document #1978-BUENOS-02346 written by the former U.S. Ambassador to Argentina,

Raúl Castro Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz ( ; ; born 3 June 1931) is a Cuban retired politician and general who served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, the most senior position in the One-par ...

, to the Secretary of State of the United States, dated 30 March 1978, with the subject line "Report of nuns death". The document reads:

1. A.F.P. (
Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse (; AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. With 2,400 employees of 100 nationalities, AFP has an editorial presence in 260 c ...
) March 28 story filed from Paris reports that the bodies of the two French nuns (Alicia Doman and Renee Duguet) (sic) who were abducted in mid December with eleven other human rights activists were identified among corpses near Bahía Blanca.
2. Buenos Aires was filled with such rumors over a month ago based on accounts of the discovery of a number of cadavers beached by unusually strong winds along Atlantic Sea, points closer to the mouth of La Plata River some 300-350 miles to the north of Bahía Blanca.
3. (Name redacted), which has been trying to track down these rumors, has confidential information that the nuns were abducted by Argentine security agents and at some point were transferred to a prison located in the town of Juníi, which is 150 miles west of Buenos Aires.
4. Embassy also has confidential information through an Argentine government source (protected) that seven bodies were discovered some weeks ago on the beach near Mar del Plata. According to this source, the bodies were those of the two nuns and five mothers who disappeared between December 8 and December 10, 1977. Our source confirmed that these individuals were originally sequestered by members of the security forces acting under a broad mandate against terrorists and subversives. Source further states that few individuals in GOA were aware of this information.
5. The source has reported reliably in the past and we have reason to believe he is reliable concerning disappearance questions.

Memorials

*On 8 December every year, in the Santa Cruz church of San Cristobal, the anniversary of the "disappearance" of the group of members of the

and the two French nuns is commemorated and their lives are celebrated. *In 2000, Buenos Aires named a small plaza ''"Hermana Alice Domon y Hermana Leonie Duquet,"'' located at the intersection of Moreto, Medina, and Cajaravilla streets. *2000, director Alberto Marquardt premiered a film titled '' Yo, Sor Alice'' about Alice Domon's life; it was an Argentine-French co-production''Yo, Sor Alice''
Argentina-Francia, 2000

Bibliography

''El Infiltrado: La Verdadera Historia de Alfredo Astiz'', Editorial Sudamericana, Buenos Aires, 1996, by Uki Goñi

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Domon, Alice 1937 births 1977 deaths Argentine human rights activists Women human rights activists Assassinated activists Assassinated French people French human rights activists French people murdered abroad People from Doubs People killed in the Dirty War People murdered by being dropped out of an aircraft False flag operations Women in the Dirty War 20th-century French nuns People assassinated in the 20th century