Beautiful Modern Architecture

 Courtesy of Cómo Era Cuba

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122188694636290165&id=61558704961459

Cuba was a cultural Mecca: writers, artists, artisans, poets, musicians, fine arts, song writers, architects. From Spaniard colonial architecture to modern architecture, every city had an old and a new. Each one offered its charm and fostered dreams in a republic where dreams could be dreamed and achieved until ONE man brought progress and to a halt. Today another building crumbled and imploded in Havana killing a beautiful family of three. 

NO MAN has done more harm and caused more pain in Cuba and Latin America than the beast 

still adored by many. Sad.

Cuba 1958 Class,Style, Thriving Economy

Courtesy of Cuba Antes de 1958, Sylvia Izquierdo

Integrated Education in Cuba before Fidel. Notice black teacher and black school director.

 https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=665735219822418&id=100091578369143

Courtesy of Recorriendo La Historia De Cuba

Excellent group to learn the facts about Cuba. If you join the group, join because you want to learn about Cuba. 

Decluttering #3 Don Juan Gelats Cuban Banker Banco Gelats

 Don Juan Gelats was a very successful Cuban banker. 

Decluttering #2 Castro's Anti-Semitism and the PLO. Excellent article on Jews in Cuba before the Cuban Revolution and Fidel's decimation of the Cuban Jewish community.

I came across this article and decided to find it online. The online article is missing the first paragraph and author information below. 

Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton.

Monday, April 15, 2002

First paragraph:  In 1941, as a student at a Catholic school run by Spanish Jesuit priests who were sympathizers of fascism at that time, Castro was looking for his ideology. 


Castro's Anti-Semitism and the PLO

Sunday, 14 April 2002 12:00 AM EDT

Displaying a fascination with power, war and domination since childhood, Castro discovered fascism and promenaded around campus with a copy of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" in his armpit.

According to many fellow students, "the crazy," as he was nicknamed, mimicked the speeches of Hitler and Mussolini in front of a mirror, practicing their mannerisms hour after hour. When Castro entered the University of Havana in 1945, he soon joined a gangster-type group and carried a pistol, so he could impose his will.

When Batista's 1952 coup interrupted his political ambitions, Castro decided to fight against him and on July 26, 1953, he attacked the Moncada Barracks, an isolated outpost of the Cuban army in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba. The attack brought Castro national attention, but at the cost of the lives of about 100, including soldiers being treated in the infirmary, execution-style as they lay in their beds.

This event became the inaugural cornerstone of Castro's personal technique for attaining his goals.

But Castro does not get credit for creativity with this assault, since it mimicked Hitler's Nov. 9, 1924, insane attack on the War Ministry in Munich, which made him a national figure in Germany. Castro's attack and the highly publicized trial that followed in the Cuban media were extremely successful in his own eyes since, like Hitler, it made him a national figure on the island.

Castro's self-defense and speech, ending with "history will absolve me," were similar to Hitler's Rathaus Putsch speech in 1924! And in 1953, Cuba's leading magazine, Bohemia, selected Castro among 12 of the world's most outstanding figures.

Like Hitler and his fascists, soon after grabbing power in 1959, Castro began eliminating people by summary executions, jail, concentration camps and exile, destroying them before they could become enemies.

By 1960, he had effectively crushed the Cuban free press, including Bohemia magazine (whose owner went into exile and committed suicide out of guilt for helping Castro take over Cuba). Soon, the over 200 private radio stations and about seven private television networks and all other institutions of the Cuban civil society fell under his absolute control, and freedom was completely eliminated.

Many Spanish-speaking Sephardic Jews from the Balkans and Palestine immigrated to Cuba before World War I. In the 1920s, many Polish Jews settled in Cuba after being refused entry into the U.S.

Other European Jews fleeing Hitler went to Cuba as a waiting place for entrance into the U.S. Once refused entry into the U.S., many stayed in Cuba. They liked the friendliness of the country and its free enterprise system and opportunities. Many Jews opened businesses, schools, community centers and synagogues. Many married Cubans and prospered in the 1950s economic boom. According to the Puebla Institute's 1991 "Castro's War on Religion," page 16, the number of Jews in Cuba was about "30,000 at their peak and [was] reduced to 15,000 by 1959. Most of those fled to the United States after the revolution."

Jews, acquainted with Hitler and the Nazis, were concerned by Castro's similarities. They foresaw what was coming and warned others. Castro's unbridled anti-Semitism, from his Hitler-admiring days, soon led to the expropriation of all assets of the thriving Cuban Jewish community, driving it into exile.

By 1967, around 2,000 Jews were left - less than 1,000 today, most of them elderly. Many joined the growing Cuban exile community in Miami, New Jersey and other places, where they share the same opinion of Castro as other Cubans in exile. Maybe that's the reason why the U.S. media have neglected them and most Americans ignore what they went through.

Fascism had become unacceptable thanks to the magnificent work of the victims of the Holocaust and the Jewish community worldwide. So, after the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs invasion due to President Kennedy's betrayal, on April 1961, Castro publicly declared himself a communist. In spite of Castro's obviously Fascist techniques, this was done for his own convenience because Marxism (communism) has become the darling of the prevailing left intellectual elite and the media.

Examples of Castro's fascist techniques include the creation in October 1960 of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, modeled after the Nazi ones in 1930 Germany. These neighborhood committees, created for spying and controlling the population in each city block, are still active today. The creation of the Young Pioneers was modeled after the Hitler Youth to indoctrinate children beginning in elementary school. The Young Pioneers are still active today. That's why Cuban exiles were so offended when Castro sent the "schoolteacher" with the other kids dressed in the uniform of the Young Pioneers to indoctrinate Elian Gonzalez on U.S. soil!

In January 1966, at Havana's Tri-Continental Conference attended by communists, revolutionaries and worldwide terrorist organizations, a resolution was passed calling for the breaking of all treaties with Israel, total economic and cultural ostracism of Israel and its expulsion from all international organizations.

In November 1966, Castro opened more than a dozen guerrilla training camps under the direction of KGB Col. Vadim Kotchergine where Palestinians were trained. And in 1967, after the Six-Day War, Cuba's U.N. ambassador, Richardo Alarcon - portrayed as a "moderate" by the U.S. media - called the war an "armed aggression against the Arab people ... by a most treacherous ... surprise attack in the Nazi manner."

In October 1973, Castro broke diplomatic relations with Israel after he deployed thousands of Cuban soldiers including helicopter pilots and tank crews to fight alongside the Syrians during the Yom Kippur War. How many Israelis did Castro's soldiers kill?

To insult Israel and the Jewish people even further, Castro gave the PLO an expropriated Jewish community center in Havana.

On Nov. 14, 1974, Yasser Arafat was enthusiastically received in Havana and given Castro's foremost decoration, the Bay of Pigs Medal.

On May 30, 1978, Reuters news service confirmed (11 years later!) that PLO personnel had been trained in Cuba and on Sept. 13, the Egyptian newspaper Ahar Sa'ah reported that 500 Palestinians were leaving for training in Cuba. Does anybody know how many terrorists and suicide bombers Castro trained in his camps and how many innocent people have been killed as a result?

From the 1970s to today, Jews have been scorned in Castro's controlled press.

Paradoxically, according to Irving Louis Horowitz's Preface in David J. Kopilow's "Castro, Israel and The PLO," the Jewish intellectuals and organizations in the U.S. "were in the forefront of singing the praises of Castro."

But with Castro's background of anti-Semitism, his decimation of the Cuban Jewish community, his plotting against the state of Israel and his connections with the PLO terrorist wing, it was puzzling and insulting to the Jewish community, including the Cuban Jews in exile, when Israel's Chief Rabbi Yisrael Lau visited Cuba in 1974. On that occasion Lau said of Castro, "He is a great friend of the Jewish people. Anti-Semitism is extremely hateful to him." Hello?

Myles Kantor, in his April 2, 2002, article, "Passover in Cuba," criticizes Jewish organizations in the U.S. like the B'nai B'rith and American ORT for looking the other way regarding the violations of human rights of the Jewish community in Cuba, and for the years of silence on Castro's crimes. Kantor asks of these organizations, why don't they "demand the emancipation of their Cuban brethren?"

"On the contrary," Kantor says, "they pour copious dollars into the regime through 'humanitarian missions' where they stay at luxurious hotels from which ordinary Cubans are excluded. They taste rum and cigars at the Hotel Nacional and feature a photograph of the fatigues-clad pharaoh."

Kantor says that the behavior of these Jewish organizations is a "disgrace."

So, let's think about it before we lend a hand to the wrong guy. Keep in mind that Castro's Cuba has been designated as "terrorist" by the U.S. State Department for many years. Cuba shares "honors" with six other rogue nations: Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Syria - all virulently anti-American. Obviously, Castro is in partnership with international terrorism. And this partnership is bonded mainly by anti-Semitism. So there you have it.

© 2002 ABIP

© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Decluttering #1

    Going through old files and decluttering, I came across this article about the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's not a bad article, but it neglects the fact that the crisis was provoked.

     How, you ask?
    
    When President Kennedy installed missiles in Turkey, he provoked the Soviet Union. And that was the beginning of the end for Cuba.


Blog: New Wars
http://newwars.blogspot.com

5 Consequences of the Cuban Missile Crisis
Monday, October 29, 2007





All Time Blog Statistics

 

Singapore
30.3K
United States
15.4K
Hong Kong
7.44K
Germany
1.01K
France
800
Vietnam
447
Brazil
380
Portugal
368
Ukraine
355
South Korea
333
China
294
Austria
279
Ireland
253
Netherlands
206
Russia
195
Canada
174
Unknown Region
172
India
165
Sweden
129
Other
2.03K

Red Sky

    The colors are fading. Window spies are always watching. Life is changing. A paper plane flown from a prison window tells me so. 

    The simple life, the simple pleasures: sandcastles, seashells, siesta, carnivals, carousels, cotton candy, piñatas, and parasols are a thing of the past. Once vibrant concrete cities are now concrete deserts. Red flutters in the wind, with foreign faces I don't know.  How can a perfect, cloudless blue sky be so gray and dark? Mami calls it a red sky.

© Dania Herrera Nasca

May 28, 2025

Education in Cuba

 Courtesy of Recorriendo la Historia de  Cuba


Integrated schools, education for all since the early 1900s. Fidel fooled the world into thinking he brought education to Cubans. 



https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=627118287017445&id=100091578369143

Courtesy of Recorriendo la Historia de Cuba

 https://www.facebook.com/100091578369143/posts/405574099171866/?


American companies that did business in Cuba did good things for Cubans. All you hear is the myth of the US hold on Cuba. 

Continues to ………

 Lights Out: A Cuban Memoir of Betrayal and Survival continues to sell every month on Amazon. 

FILLED TO THE RIM

    1970- Walking into a room full of newly arrived Cubans and Cubans who arrived in the US in the 1960s promises to be, I assure you, an experience you won't forget.

    Simultaneous heated conversations with each person trying to outdo the other, trembling hands holding cups filled to the rim with café Cubano flying across the air, their content spilled without prejudice, and feet stomping the floor from raised knee highs are just the beginning of a long evening. When a dry stem of straw succumbs to the fire, another ignites. It can go on for hours!


    Young ones try not to giggle when a woman describes how she would put Fidel in a cage and make sure he dies a slow, painful death; a pellizco, pinch here, a pinch there……..


    To walk into a room full of Cubans during this time in history is to walk into a room of broken hearts, filled to the rim and overflowing with pain and anger. 


© Dania Herrera Nasca

April 26, 2025


    

The Old and the New

        

                                                            The Old and the New

    "I said let's go. We'll stop at Teresita's house," my sister says, grabbing my hand and pulling me out of my seat and out of the theater. 

    Calle Frexes, where Teresita lives, is a street of contrast. One side boasts big, old Spanish colonial houses without portals. The windows and wrought iron verandas reach the floor, and, like our house, the front doors open to the sidewalk.

    The opposite side of the street is lined with two-story, modern duplexes. Teresita and her family live on the second floor of a duplex. The gate at the entrance, always open, is an invitation into the tiled courtyard garden full of tropical greenery of all sizes. A refreshing feeling invades all my senses as soon as I walk in, I could stay in this cool, inviting spot forever. The stairs to the second floor are against the wall to the right and lead to a spacious balcony. The new doesn't show signs of decay yet.


    The block window spy across the street is at her post. Before entering the courtyard, I cast my gaze on her. This is my way of fighting back; a silent gaze speaks volumes. I know what you are doing.


    The inside of the house is as enchanting as the courtyard. It is modern, and the couch is upholstered—they call it a divan. Everyone I know has solid wood mission furniture. There’s a piano! In the dining room, a hidden stairway leads to the first-floor unit. "Woo-hoo!" Memories of crawling through the narrow stairs with its dark, low ceiling, cobwebs, and damp smell are out of a mystery movie. It wasn't long ago, but I know doing it again won't feel the same. 


© Dania Herrera Nasca

April 25, 2025



Pot Day Flight

    For most people, especially those who have endured a long, frigid, icy, and snowy winter, April brings a welcome sigh of relief. People are itching to put a pair of shorts on and go out there without their hats, gloves, and winter coats. Sure, it's still cold, and the roads can be slippery in the morning, but the snowstorms and blizzards are behind us, at least for the next seven to eight months. 

    Looking out my kitchen window early in the morning, there's no better sign spring is just around the corner than the colors, song, and dance the American Robin brings. Their bright orange-reddish breasts, cheer-me-up song, and quick dance across the grass erase the blinding white of snow and the grayness of slush. The skies are still gray on most days, but we know something wonderful and long-awaited is coming; spring and then summer. 

    Yes, April is the month of ends and beginnings. Although I enjoy the beauty and message the Robins bring and join millions in anticipation of spring and summer, April is not one of my favorite months. 

    For me, April came with the dreadful knock on our door on a typical bright, sunny day; the heart-wrenching goodbye to family, friends, and home, the leaving behind of sunshine in the tropics, and the beginning of a new life and a new home in gray, cold, depressing Western New York. 

    On this day, fifty-five years ago, I left the warmth of home, Cuba, and arrived in the United States on a US-sponsored Freedom Flight. 

    At every end, there's a beginning. This year, April 20th falls on Easter Sunday.