Josefina Ganzarain Gómez

"Well, at first Vicente was in La Cabaña, in Galera 8, and I visited him every Friday... No, not every Friday, every 15 days. But Vicente found out that if he voluntarily swept the dining room with other prisoners, he would have access to or the option of having another visit, which meant that every Friday I would take my little boat at Muelle de Luz, get off at Casablanca, climb up that hillside next to Havana Bay, and arrive where Vicente was and see him every Friday. All this time he was in La Cabaña, they hadn't charged him, they charged him, a lawyer promised me that, for me, well, that's the bad memory of that time, he told me they weren't going to charge him, they charged him. The time came, “don't worry, they're not going to put him on trial,” and on November 3, 1961, the lawyer told me, “I'm the one who's going to defend your husband at the trial.” And on November 10, when I was already almost ready to give birth, because I gave birth shortly after, Vicente arrived at the place where the trial was being held and saw that there was no lawyer. He didn't show up to defend Vicente. So Vicente signaled to me and said, as if to say, “Don't worry, I know how to defend myself,” and he defended himself. He defended himself alone, without a defense attorney, and a few days later, on November 3, and then on November 8, which was our second wedding anniversary, he was sentenced. At the trial, the prosecutor asked for 15 years, and on November 8, they reduced it to three years. So he remained in La Cabaña, but on November 18, 1961, they transferred him to the mountains, as they said, to Isla de Pinos. Then things changed. La Cabaña no longer existed for me in my daily life, but I had to think about how I could visit Vicente in Isla de Pinos. And on November 18, I found out that he had been transferred. I called the Ministry of the Interior, which I think was the one I was supposed to call, because I gave birth on December 13, and I called them to ask them a favor, to see if they could give me a special visit so that Vicente could meet the baby, and they said no. They told me to wait for my official visit. And the official visit was on April 28, 1962. So Vicente met Anabel when she was four months old."

"Daily life was difficult, but we always found a way. We never went without a meal, unlike before, because before we had everything we wanted. We had to limit ourselves to the ration book, but that wasn't as important to me as having the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution in front of my house, watching me day and night. So, at first, I had a really hard time with that. But then I said, I have no choice but to say, here I am, I have to get on with my life, and even though they're watching me all day, sometimes I just have to ignore them. In any case, my relationships with other family members and friends deteriorated, many of them also knowing that Vicente was in prison, so they stopped coming to our house for fear that if they visited too often, I don't know, but the family, which was the most important thing for us, was there for us, supporting us, and for me that was very important, very important. I have many good memories of that time, despite everything.

"Yes, yes, but they had also made an inventory for Vicente, imagine that, a duplicate inventory to see if I had sold anything in the meantime, because there was also the peculiarity that if you had removed anything, you had to replace it. One anecdote that really caught my attention: the day before leaving Cuba, I had to go with my telephone to the telephone company to hand it in. Then they did another inventory to see if I had everything in order. Everything was in order, so the day before I left Cuba, I had to go to the airport with my luggage for the security check that they did on all of us who were traveling the next day, but that luggage was not coming back with me; they kept it there until the next day. Another thing: when Vicente started working, I was there when Vicente arrived in Spain. The first thing he did was to draw up a power of attorney so that if I was able to leave and my departure was approved, I would have his power of attorney to take the girls out of Cuba as well. So this was to be able to take Anabel, Cecilia, and a possible third child who might be born, because María Eugenia had not yet been born. What happened? María Eugenia was born, and that power of attorney was useless to me because the possible third child had to have a name. So Vicente had to draw up another power of attorney for me, covering Anabel (Ana Isabel), Cecilia, and María Eugenia. And that possible third child was born and is called María Eugenia. When I checked in my luggage at the airport and they said, “Here you are,” and they read it, then okay, well, that was on the 30th, that was all. On the 31st, the flight was leaving at around 11:00 a.m. or 12:00 noon. So I had to be at the airport with the three girls at around 3:00 a.m. The moment arrived when we thought it was time. They didn't send me on Iberia, they sent me on Cubana de Aviación, because the Iberia flight was 8 hours and the Cubana de Aviación flight was 17 hours. and when we were about to leave what they called the fishbowl because it was all glass, a militiaman or a soldier came, I don't remember exactly: ‘Those I name on this side and those I don't name on the other side’. Then they named me, Anabel, and Cecilia, and I said that Marigé wasn't entitled to a seat because she was 14 months old. I had to pay for Marigé, I think an eighth of the ticket price or something like that, but Anabel and Cecilia were left behind because there was a government delegation going to Prague, Czechoslovakia, via Spain, and they needed free seats. But they did it on a whim, on a free whim. Anabel was about to turn 7 and Cecilia was about to turn 3. They left her behind because they had to give seats to the Cuban delegation. So I got very nervous there. I never, throughout this whole process, lost my peace because I was sure of what I wanted to do in my life. And since I had support and many things for which I must thank God, above all, I did say: no, if my daughters don't travel, I'm not traveling either. Then a man from Iberia who was there, who was a friend of ours, said to me: ‘Calm down, calm down, there may be a possible solution’. I said I'm staying, I'll give up another seat on the delegation, but I'm not leaving my daughters behind. In the end, a couple I knew who were also going to travel on the flight with me were left behind, so there were seats for Anabel and Cecilia. Eighteen hours of flying, I don't know, I don't know how many there were. And so I arrived in Madrid, and the first thing I said to my husband, with Marigé in my arms, was, “Here's your daughter.” And well, he met her, because he didn't know her.