This dissertation traces how state-sanctioned violence in the Southern Cone traumatically re-signified common objects (dwellings, food, clothing), such in a way that continues to reverberate following the region’s democratic transition. I refashion and extend works from memory and trauma studies and queer phenomenology to argue that these memory objects are a key anchor for producing counter-histories and fomenting memory groups amidst dominant pressures from early democratic governments to forget the dictatorial past. Literature, as it were, offered and continues to offer such groups and victims a potent space to highlight the invisible production of memory through interaction with the object world. As such, these reminders offer mnemonic guideposts for reestablishing historical continuity and demanding justice. Throughout the chapters of the dissertation, I work with three primary categories of memory objects: objects of pain, transitional objects, and testimonial objects. These three categories relate to the weaponization of common objects against so-called subversives, as well as how victims and their affiliations utilized these objects to both conjure resiliency in moments of suffering and contend with widespread amnesia in the years following the democratic transition. I read three types of objects across these categories: housing, food, and clothing. These three objects represent the fundamental pillars of a safe and thriving populace, and each were weaponized by dictatorial regimes to maximize suffering in victims.