Tren Blindado

The Monumento al Tren Blindado (Spanish for "Monument to the Armored Train") in Santa Clara ( Cuba ) is a national monument to the Cuban Revolution . It was created by the Cuban sculptor José Delarra in memory of the events of December 29, 1958 .

history

The armored special train left Havana on December 23, 1958 with two diesel locomotives and 17 four-axle open and closed freight cars and crew cars of American origin, the side walls of which were reinforced with steel plates.

The train, which, along with 373 soldiers, was still fully loaded with weapons, ammunition and provisions for two months, was supposed to turn the tide in the fight against the revolution and for the Batista regime in the east.

The next day he reached Santa Clara and stopped at the foot of the Loma del Capiro hill . The unit's commander, Colonel Florentino Rosell Leyva (Commander of the Engineer Corps), left on December 26, 1958, on a private yacht to Miami ( USA ).

Three days later, 18 guerrillas from the Movimiento 26 de Julio under their commander Ernesto Che Guevara attacked the Tren Blindado on the site of today's national monument . When the officers wanted to move the train to a better position, Guevara destroyed 30 meters of track at the level crossing with a bulldozer and derailed the armored train. The heat generated by Molotov cocktails finally forced the officers to surrender at 7 p.m. After several hours of fighting, the weapons fell into the hands of the guerrillas. Many soldiers on the train fraternized with the rebels.

The conquest of the train was followed a little later by the conquest of the city of Santa Clara itself. It was the last days of the Cuban revolution. After the fall of the provincial city, Batista fled Cuba to the Dominican Republic on January 1, 1959 .

monument

Today four restored original wagons of the train stand in a park right next to the track that is back in operation. Historical photos, numerous preserved utensils and the remains of captured weapons are shown in the passenger cars. The bulldozer with which the comandante destroyed the track system can also be viewed on the site of the monument.

According to the artist's imagination, several concrete forms, some arranged in rays, symbolize the decisive moment when an explosive charge explodes on the track bed. Other shapes cover the area around the train and symbolize the destroyed station buildings, but at the same time also the hated Batista dictatorship which it had overcome. Inscriptions explain the historical events to the visitors.

The monument can be visited Monday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.

Adaptation

filming

The events around the Tren Blindado served as a template for the US political thriller "Cuba", filmed in 1979 by the director Richard Lester . The German version of the film is entitled " Explosion in Cuba ".

music

The songwriter Silvio Rodríguez sings about the events in "El Tren Blindado", published in 1984. The 1986 double single "1936 - the spanish revolution" by the Dutch punk band The Ex contains a song of the same name.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.cubaworld.de/cubainfos/cubas-staedte/santa-clara.html
2. ↑ http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/armored-train.htm
3. ↑ Monumentos Nacionales Santa Clara ( Memento of December 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ Information board at the monument.

Web links

Commons : Tren Blindado  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 22 ° 24 ′ 35.3 "  N , 79 ° 57 ′ 37"  W.