MIAMI, United States.- Walking through Havana, with Camila Carballo, we arrived in Guanabacoa, specifically the Jewish cemetery and the stories behind this place, where the ancestors of many families who once fled fascism and Nazism remained. they arrived on the islandfrom where they had to emigrate again to escape the communism of Fidel Castro.
Guanabacoa is a place where religions of all kinds coexist, it is also known as the city of cemeteries, and in one of them rest the Jewish remains of one of the high officials of US politics: Alejandro Mayorkas.
In the midst of World War II, the Jewish community suffered the worst part, Carballo tells CubaNet in just over four minutes. And he explains that this community has achieved as many results as fame. Jews being only 0.2% of the world’s population, they represent 54% of the chess champions, 27% of the Nobel Prize laureates in Physics, 31% of the laureates in medicine, 37% of the directors of Oscar-winning cinema and 51% of the Pulitzer Prize winners in the field of non-fiction.
However, something has characterized the Jews throughout their history, and it is the ability not to forget the past and apply what they have learned in order to be better people.
An example of this, says Camila Carballo, was the position assumed in the summer of 2015 by Alejandro Mayorkas, then Undersecretary of State of the United States, after calling a meeting in the face of the serious migration crisis facing the country.
“An official at the table proposed an administrative separation, according to two of the attendees. The government would jail parents and send their children to shelters.” Mayorkas adamantly refused, saying such a move would never be considered.
Mayorkas comes from a family that, fleeing fascism, emigrated to Cuba and then to the United States, leaving part of their ancestors in Guanabacoa.
“The collective memory of Cubans is too short and selective, for whatever reason, and we are prone to forgetting what is convenient for us. Havana is a great melting pot of cultures, not forgetting is the only thing that can save us”.
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