Urselia Díaz

Urselia Díaz

Urselia Díaz Báez (born February 21, 1939 in Havana ; † September 3, 1957 there ) was a member of the revolutionary movement of July 26th , who died at the age of 18 in a premature explosion of a bomb that they deposited in a cinema wanted to. She has been venerated as a heroine by the Cuban government under Fidel and Raúl Castro since the 1959 revolution . She was the first woman to be martyred in the underground struggle against the Fulgencio Batistas government .

Life

Díaz grew up in a working-class family in the eastern outskirts of Guanabacoa of the capital Havana as the daughter of Roberto Díaz and Ofelia Báez. After completing middle school in Guanabacoa, she attended the state Instituto de La Habana to acquire the university entrance qualification required for her planned medical studies, from which she separated in September 1957 for the final fifth year of study. Together with her friend Antonio "Tony" Briones, after initially peaceful protests, she decided in favor of violent resistance against the dictatorial government of Batista. Due to the pressure of persecution, Briones had to go into exile in early 1957 and both joined the July 26th Movement, whose founder Fidel Castro was waging a guerrilla war with his still small rebel army in the eastern Cuban Sierra Maestra at that time . Urselia Díaz had already proven herself with the execution of numerous assignments for the movement before she was accepted into the "Action and Sabotage" department. She carried out several terrorist attacks, including on a bar and a busy department store (both in Old Havana).

Bomb attack

On the evening of September 3, 1957, Díaz and Antonio Sánchez Gómez, a comrade-in-arms who had been privy to the attack plan, visited the América cinema in downtown Havana . In view of the ongoing wave of terrorism, he was body searched at the entrance, while she only had to have her handbag checked. Under her wide skirt she hid a bomb with a time fuse. Together with her accomplice, she was supposed to detonate the bomb in the auditorium, which was to take place at the same time as two bomb explosions in other cinemas in the city center, which other couples had been charged with. While the performance was running, Díaz left the auditorium and went to the ladies' room to activate the bomb's timer for the planned explosion. Shortly after she got there, the bomb exploded in her hands, killing her. Except for herself, no other people were harmed. The bombing was intended as a protest against the celebrations organized by the government on the occasion of the 24th anniversary of the fall of dictator Gerardo Machado , led by Batista, on the following day as “Soldier's Day” . He was involved in a number of terrorist acts of violence such as attacks on department stores, entertainment venues or power lines, as well as assassinations and kidnappings, which were carried out in 1957 and 1958 by the "Sabotage and Action" department of the July 26th Movement and by other organizations in the cities of Cuba were carried out while the various guerrilla units were fighting in the mountains.

Honorable memory

On the facade of the cinema, which is still in use today, there is a plaque, unveiled on September 3, 1959, of her comrades-in-arms of the July 26th revolution, on which it is recorded that Díaz "died heroically fighting tyranny".

Later, a state printing company in Havana and a university branch for medical training in Banes were named after her.

literature

• Nydia Sarabia: Tras las huellas de los heroes: Vidas de heroes de la Revolución. Gente Nueva, Havana 1980.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Gislania Tamayo Cedeño: Urselia Díaz Báez: primera mujer mártir en la lucha clandestina en Cuba, ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: La Demajagua, February 21, 2011, accessed June 7, 2014 (Spanish)
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Matilde Salas Servando: Urselia, la alumna del Instituto de La Habana, ( Memento of the original from March 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: Somos Jóvenes from 2007, accessed on June 7, 2014 (Spanish)
3. ↑ Marilys Suárez Moreno: Urselia, mártir de la lucha clandestina, ( Memento of the original from June 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: Cubaweb from 1998, accessed June 8, 2014 (Spanish)
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Argentina Jiménez: Historia contada por un protagonista, ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: Tribuna de La Habana of September 1, 2012, accessed June 8, 2014 (Spanish)
5. ↑ Nydia Sarabia: Tras las huellas de los heroes: Vidas de heroes de la Revolución. Gente Nueva, Havanna 1980, quoted from Manuel Castro Rodríguez: El terrorismo como táctica castrista, in the blog Crónicas de Cuba , accessed on June 8, 2014 (Spanish)
6. ^ Dominique Gay-Sylvestre: Être femme à Cuba: Des premières militantes féministes aux militantes révolutionnaires. L'Harmattan, 2006, p. 59 (French)
7. ↑ José Antonio Fornaris: "Aquí sí se ha hecho terrorismo", asegura ex miembro del M-26-7, ( Memento of the original dated December 6, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: Cubanet of May 27, 2002, accessed June 8, 2014 (Spanish)
8. ↑ Orlando Freire Santana: Las bombas malas y las bombas buenas del castrismo, in: Cubanet from September 11, 2012, accessed on June 8, 2014 (Spanish)
9. ↑ Filial de Ciencias Médicas Urselia Díaz Báez in the online directory of institutions of the Cuban health care system, accessed on June 8, 2014 (Spanish)