“There was a... and this was told to me, I didn't see it myself either. There was a young woman who, at eight months pregnant, had been imprisoned. She and her husband were newlyweds. He had been imprisoned too. During a search… and there was an elderly woman, who is now 102 years old and used to always attend the meetings I hold on the first Sunday of each month for female prisoners at the Patriotic Junta. That woman was with her. They called for a search, but this young woman, who was about eight months pregnant, was very weak, felt dizzy, and collapsed. The guard told her: "Stand up." And when she didn’t get up, he kicked her, and you know what? He killed her right there. Because the young girl—as the woman who is still alive today told me —that it was a pool of blood pouring out of that woman. And she said that even after she had lost consciousness, whether dead or unconscious, her belly kept trembling. And her husband, whose name I don’t know because the young girl could never tell me, when he found out in Isla de Pinos, threw himself from the sixth floor—I believe it was—and killed himself.”
“In this place (Isla de Pinos), I was beaten daily. Wounds… I was wounded three times. I have a bayonet wound in my thigh, where there is still a hole. I have another one in my buttock, which also left a scar, and a machete wound from a corporal named José García Rojas, who killed another comrade of mine named Francisco Pico—we called him Paco Pico—by shooting him in the chest and killing him. They also killed Julio, a 23-year-old medical student. I will tell you the horrible way they killed him. They threw him to the ground. He and another corporal named Carmenate, who was from the Puerto Padre region… that corporal… he died almost two years ago now. The other murderer—the one who wounded me, who killed Paco Pico—is still living today in Las Villas, in Camajuaní. Since there were so many of us, we roughly knew where each one came from. There were around 200,000 prisoners. Then, they threw this poor man to the ground, spread his legs, and stabbed him with a bayonet. It must have been horrible… horrible… because his body convulsed like this.”
“I can tell you one thing. The one they take to be executed... because I lived it... the one they take to be killed... I could feel it... it's something like you become absent, and you don’t feel anything. I think you don’t feel anything... that’s what happened to me. Maybe others felt differently, but I can assure you of this. Later, when they held me in the dungeons of La Cabaña for 23 months without trial—where they executed those incredibly brave young men—I didn’t know many of them, but some were so courageous that they shouted, “Long live Christ the King! Down with communism!” Such immense bravery… and then they were machine-gunned. Well… it was horrible. I tell you, what we had to live through was so horrifying that even remembering it is painful.”
Nelson Rodríguez Diéguez was born on April 13, 1937, in Velazco, a town located about 26 kilometers from the city of Holguín. He remembers this place as very peaceful, where people treated each other well and had great respect for freedom and democracy. His father worked at a sugar mill, and his mother was a seamstress. In 1956, he moved to Havana, and after Fidel Castro‘s Revolution triumphed, he became part of the movement called „November 30th,“ which fought to restore democracy on the island. He was responsible for planning and finances within the organization. However, in 1961, he was arrested due to the infiltration of an agent into the movement. After being detained for two days in Havana, he was transported to a location about which little is known; some refer to it as „Las Cabañitas,“ others as „Punto X.“ It was on the outskirts of Havana and served as a detention site during interrogations. There, he was subjected to extreme torture, mistreatment, and humiliation. He was later taken to La Cabaña prison, where he spent approximately 23 months awaiting trial. During that time, he witnessed countless executions. After his trial, he was imprisoned from 1964 to 1967 in the Isla de Pinos (Isle of Pines) prison, where he suffered multiple attacks by guards and, along with nearly all prisoners there, was forced into hard labor. Until 1970, when he was released, he passed through other prisons in Pinar del Río and Camagüey. He remained in Cuba until 1978 when he went into exile in Venezuela, where he worked and lived until Hugo Chávez‘s rise to power. After being attacked following a televised political interview, he relocated to Miami, where he still resides today. He supports independent Cuban libraries and collects testimonies from people persecuted by the Cuban regime.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
