Pregnant Woman Was Abducted in 1978. Her Mother Searched for Decades to Find Her Grandson and 139 Other Stolen Babies

Patricia Roisinblit was eight months pregnant when she and her 15-month-old daughter were kidnapped from their apartment by armed men in October 1978.

Labeled “subversives” by Argentina’s military dictatorship during the Dirty War, Patricia and her partner, José Manuel Pérez Rojo, had thought they were finally safe—until at least 20 men appeared at José’s elderly aunt’s home north of Buenos Aires later that evening.

Both were forced into separate vehicles. Their daughter, Mariana, was placed in a basket and handed to a relative.

As José begged his family to care for the child, Patricia shouted one last desperate warning—“I’m pregnant! They’re taking me to—”—before a guard covered her mouth. Neither parent was seen again.

This moment is described in A Flower Traveled in My Blood, a nonfiction work by Haley Cohen Gilliland, published last month by Avid Reader Press.

Patricia’s disappearance and the fate of her unborn child drove her mother, Rosa Tarlovsky de Roisinblit, into a decades-long search—first for her daughter and son-in-law, then for the grandchild she prayed had survived.

Rosa, who turns 106 in August, is part of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, a group of grandmothers who have worked tirelessly to find children stolen between 1976 and 1983. Of an estimated 500 abducted grandchildren, they have found 140—most recently, another discovery just last month.

“The worst thing that could ever happen to them had happened,” Gilliland told PEOPLE. “In a way, that was freeing because they felt they had nothing else to lose. The worst next thing would be giving up.”

Argentina’s Dirty War began after a 1976 military coup led by Lieut. Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla, which ousted Isabel Perón and launched a campaign of terror against perceived leftist opponents. Patricia and José had been part of the Montoneros, a group that supported Perón before disbanding.

Between 10,000 and 30,000 people—among them pregnant women whose babies were taken—were killed. They became known as desaparecidos, or “the disappeared.”

In A Flower Traveled in My Blood, Gilliland details the grandmothers’ relentless pursuit of justice, which helped topple the dictatorship and led to advances in genetic testing to reunite families.

Rosa’s personal story is one of determination. Born to Jewish parents who fled European pogroms, she became an obstetrician—a rare career choice for women in Argentina at the time. She had not been politically active until Patricia and José were abducted. Rosa went on to serve as treasurer and later vice president of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo.

In 1982, Rosa learned Patricia had given birth to a boy, Rodolfo Fernando, while in captivity. Patricia was reportedly kept blindfolded and bound before being transferred to the notorious ESMA detention center. A former air force officer later suggested she may have been thrown into the sea after giving birth.

It wasn’t until 2000 that Rosa and Mariana located Rodolfo—by then 21 years old and living as Guillermo Francisco Gómez, the adopted son of an air force intelligence officer and his wife. Guillermo’s childhood was marked by domestic abuse, and he had no idea he was adopted until Mariana approached him directly, breaking with the Abuelas’ usual protocol.

DNA testing confirmed his true identity. Guillermo later learned that the man who raised him had worked at ESMA during his mother’s imprisonment. In 2016, Guillermo testified in court; his adoptive father received a life sentence, and his adoptive mother was sentenced to three years for his abduction.

Guillermo has since taken the surname Pérez Roisinblit to honor his biological parents and works as a human rights lawyer with the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo.

“I hope when a reader closes the back cover that, instead of feeling weighed down by that darkness, they’re inspired by how the Abuelas responded to it,” Gilliland said. “Their courage, resilience, and love of family powered them forward.”

Rosa expressed the same resolve in a 2016 interview with The Guardian: “The strength comes from the love for your children. If I had stayed home crying for the disappearance of my daughter, I would have died long ago.”