FUNDACIÓN VÍCTIMAS DEL TERRORISMO 96 - ENGLISH

EDUCATION AND COEXISTENCE 25 She was taken to Gregorio Marañón Hos- pital and remained sedated for five days. When she woke, she did not know what had happened. She could not move, had lost her hearing and had serious injuries. Days later, she learnt that her husband had spent hours seeking information at hospitals and IFEMA, initially unable to find her because her surname was miss- pelt on the lists of injured people. Recovery was long and painful. Esther spent 19 days in intensive care and later underwent 13 operations. In those first days, she could barely communicate with her family. Her husband brought her two photographs of their children, but at first she did not even recognise them. “Imagine what it means for a mo- ther not to remember her own children,” she said. From that moment, she began setting herself small goals and seeing each me- dical test as part of her recovery. She made a decision that shaped her response to what had happened: “If I get throu- gh this, I will fight with all my strength so that nobody in the world has to live through what I am living through.” That decision has also influenced how she has raised her children. “It would have been very easy to teach them to hate, but I did not want to turn them into the same kind of people who plan- ted the bomb that hurt me,” Esther ad- mits. That is why she defends tolerance, respect for people who think differently and coexistence. “I do not believe in an eye for an eye,” she said. Her commitment to this message also led her to participate in the Classroom Testimony programme. There, speaking to young people, she tries to convey an idea that sums up her response to vio- lence: “We can change everything.” TESTIMONY AS A MEANS OF PREVENTION She shares this work of bringing her ex- periences to younger generations with Alicia, who also participates in Class- room Testimony. Both explain to stu- dents what terrorist violence meant for them and their families, an experience all three participants considered essential to keeping remembrance alive. They agreed that speaking about what happened to new generations helps them understand the consequences and also contributes to preventing a recurrence. For Alicia, sharing her experience with young people was also a way of breaking the silence that had surrounded her father’s story for so long. Speaking to teenagers, she tries to help themunderstand that “behind a news report about an attack are real peo- ple and families whose lives change fore- ver”. Her message rests on a simple convic- tion: no cause, however legitimate it may seem, can justify violence, and every cause can be defended through words. Esther sees these encounters as an opportunity to ask students what they would do if they ever came face to face with the people who had caused them irreparable harm. For her, the answer cannot be to reproduce the same vio- lence. She also discusses the possibility of forgiveness, while recognising it as a personal decision. Her aim is for “young people to understand that they have the capacity both to do good and to cause harm” and that, ultimately, “they decide which path to follow”, she emphasised. Víctor wanted to stress the role of social media and how it can hinder the trans- mission of remembrance. In his view, te- rrorism and other conflicts are frequent- ly approached superficially, without real understanding of what it means to suffer their consequences. Against that distan- ce, he defended the value of direct testi- mony, which can give a name and a face to a reality otherwise at risk of being reduced to figures or headlines. A STORY THAT DOES NOT END For those who have lived through an at- tack, the passage of time does not mean its effects disappear. Esther explains that new attacks can bring memories back and trigger episodes associated with post-traumatic stress. Images of that 11 March remain part of her life; although she has learnt to live with them, they do not cease to exist. The attacks of 11 September and, es- pecially, 11 March made Víctor think about his own experience and the fami- lies searching for their loved ones. Alicia recalled the years of ETA violence and her mother’s reaction whenever an at- tack occurred. Her particular sensitivity towards children who lose their parents comes from her own history and a child- hood marked by an absence that never left her. The three testimonies made clear that terrorist violence does not end with the explosion or when it disappears from the headlines. Its consequences remain in families, memories and subsequent generations. For Alicia, Víctor and Es- ther, telling what happened also means defending the memory of those who su- ffered and passing on an essential idea: no cause or conviction justifies an attack on another person’s life. María Esther Sáez Injured in the 11 March attacks