Unraveling the thread of the city's history and making this story available to the community is equivalent to inviting it to be a part of it. Those who feel they belong care more, demand more, that is, they exercise their citizenship fully. Elevated to social life, remembering or forgetting ceases to be a merely voluntary or individual element.
Who decides what to remember? Who is interested in forgetting? After 110 years of official formation, Foz do Iguaçu does not have effective public facilities and programs so that residents can look back in time, see characters and facts in order to contextualize them in the present. There is not even a technically researched and cataloged photographic collection.
Compounding this need, the Iguaçu National Park museum was donated/lent/ceded to a space in the state capital, back in the 1990s and 2000s. It is an issue for the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) to relocate it, with a contemporary vision. Likewise, the historic São João Plant, inside the unit, remains abandoned.
Private and selfless initiatives are the source of knowledge, consultation, research, reflection and enrichment of the repertoire on the formation and development of Foz do Iguaçu and its residents. H2FOZ offers ten selected interviews from Our Time, a newspaper published between 1980 and 1994, which helps to understand the dynamics of the city and many of its historical subjects.
These are characters who looked at the same Foz do Iguaçu in different historical periods, with equally varied worldviews, based on their own trajectories and understandings of society. We transport you, the reader, to the time of the interviewees.
1. Sady Vidal
With advanced ideas for the period, he was a councilman and president of the City Council (1953 to 1955), working in politics when the PTB, UDN and the Integralists existed. Even at that time, says Sady Vidal, there were so-called “electoral pens” in favor of political power. In the interview, he describes life in the city, commerce, production and integration with the border countries.
Click and read in full:
https://www.nossotempodigital.com.br/edicao/2/?pagina=6
2. Jose Werner
He arrived in Foz do Iguaçu in 1909, before the administrative foundation of the municipality, and is therefore one of its oldest residents. In the 1930s he was mayor and, as a young man, played and helped found the ABC team. José Werner reveals how he escaped the explosion of the ship he was traveling on in the Paraná River, in which more than 100 people died, by swimming through the fire.
Click and read in full:
https://www.nossotempodigital.com.br/edicao/21/?pagina=8
3. Stanislaus Zambrzycki
With post-war trade weakened in his city, he settled here, where he opened Casa Mineira, which sold vinegar, salt, sugar, kerosene and vegetables until 1967. A present and well-known figure at popular festivals, Estanislau Zambrzycki was baptized “São João de Foz do Iguaçu” and contributed to the newspaper O Estado do Paraná.
Click and read in full:
https://www.nossotempodigital.com.br/edicao/27/?pagina=12
4. Elfrida Engels Rios
When she was interviewed in 1982, she was 82 years old. An iconic figure in the city, she was active in preserving and promoting the history of Foz do Iguaçu. Elfrida Engels Rios reveals old stories about the city, such as the arrival of the first radios and the development process.
Click and read in full:
https://www.nossotempodigital.com.br/edicao/48/?pagina=24
5. Dom Olivio Aurelio Fazza
The bishop of Foz do Iguaçu analyzes the social problems of his time and defends the participation of the Church in supporting the vulnerable population. The priest played an important role in addressing demands that bordered on conflict in the 1980s, such as the march of settlers expropriated by Itaipu Binacional.
Click and read in full:
https://www.nossotempodigital.com.br/edicao/147/?pagina=10
6. Clovis Cunha Vianna
Since the past, the city's expansion has been the reason for municipal leaders to justify unfinished projects. Having held the imposed position of interventor of Foz do Iguaçu for a long time, Clóvis Cunha Vianna said he had “done a lot”. Without democracy, the city went two decades without the right to elect a mayor.
Click and read in full:
https://www.nossotempodigital.com.br/edicao/81/?pagina=2
7. Roberto Lange
In just a few years, the form of territorial occupation profoundly changed the landscape of Foz do Iguaçu, impacting the flora and fauna. This was the concern of biologist and environmentalist Roberto Ribas Lange, back in the 1980s, who called for the institutionalization of the environmental issue, that is, he advocated public policies.
Click and read in full:
https://www.nossotempodigital.com.br/edicao/219/?pagina=19
8. Juvencio Mazzarollo
The country's last political prisoner, the journalist from Foz do Iguaçu, one of the newspaper's editors Our Time, Juvêncio Mazzarollo was framed by the aberration of the National Security Law for using the word, for having an opinion. On his birthday, in 1983, hundreds of people visited him in prison, and he left the message in the interview he gave: “Whoever wants to lick boots can do so, I won’t.”
Click and read in full:
https://www.nossotempodigital.com.br/edicao/91
9. Jorge Samways, the grandson
Industrialization as a challenge for Foz do Iguaçu was the main approach of the businessman and representative of professional associations. He is the grandson of Jorge Samways, an Englishman who came from Curitiba (PR) to the border, at the request of the city's first mayor, Jorge Schimmelpfeng, to succeed him.
Click and read in full:
https://www.nossotempodigital.com.br/edicao/268
10. Councilors on hunger strike
Five city council members went on hunger strike and were interviewed during the protest, which aimed to raise awareness among the state and federal governments in favor of Foz do Iguaçu. The central demand was direct elections and the immediate replacement of the interventor Clóvis Cunha Vianna, who was enthroned as mayor by the military regime.
Click and read in full:
https://www.nossotempodigital.com.br/edicao/104
History of Foz do Iguaçu at a click
The selected interviews are all available on the Nosso Tempo Digital portal, which brings together the newspaper's archive, a project launched to mark the newspaper's 30th anniversary. The goal is to preserve the city's memory, facilitate access to local and regional history, and democratize access to the media collection via the internet.
Access is free. The collection is a valuable resource for residents who want to delve into the history of the city and its actors, as told in the 387 editions of the newspaper that have been digitized, covering the period from December 1980 to December 1989.
Our Digital Time
Free collection of digitized editions of the newspaper. https://www.nossotempodigital.com.br/
