Maria Amélia Teles remembers her encounter with the late Army Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, on December 28, 1972. She had been arrested, alongside with her husband, her pregnant sister, and a few other militants from the Communist Party of Brazil. While watching the political police beat her husband and a friend, Ms. Teles turned to the man who was orchestrating the whole ordeal. “He slapped me with the back of his hand, shouting: ‘Fuck off, you communist,’ and ordered the three of us to be taken to a torture chamber,” she remembers.
Ms. Teles watched...