A few days ago I posted about the BBC's documentary that shed light on the effort by the Basque government to evacuate thousands of children from the Basque Republic under attack by Hitler and his puppets Mussolini and Franco.
In the article "Growing up with Pedro Pan" by Hedy Weiss published by the Chicago Sun Times, Nilo Cruz, the person around whom the article revolves, tell us about the experience of growing up in the USA after being airlifted from Castro's Cuba:
"Operation Pedro Pan was a very sad chapter in Cuban history," said Cruz. "Children as young as 5 years old were separated from their parents. Three of my cousins came to the United States as Pedro Pan kids. I was only born in 1960, so I was too young. But I did a lot of research for this play and interviewed a number of those who arrived here as children. It was such a difficult situation for them; they lived in a state of limbo and uncertainty while waiting for their parents."
And then, the Cuban playwright talks about something I mentioned at my post, please, read on:
"There was the Kindertransport during World War II, when 10,000 children from Germany, Poland, Austria and Czechoslovakia were sent to Great Britain, and then on to the U.S and Canada," Cruz noted. "And there was something similar during the Spanish Civil War when 25,000 children from the Basque region were sent to other parts of Europe, Mexico and the Soviet Union. So there is a universal theme in this.
"I was also interested in what happens when two children are sent from their home to live in another place. Do they become parents to each other? Or friends and guardians? Or even lovers? What is a family?"
I recomend that you read the entire article, it is a delight to learn about this chapter of Cuban history without the bias that you usually expect in newspapers published in Miami and some other cities in Florida.
.... ... .
No comments:
Post a Comment