Reclaiming history
Try as they might, through historical revision and ruin, the castro dictatorship has not succeeded in erasing the true history of Cuba. A year or so ago, when I posted about my then newly acquired copy of the 1958 Ciudad la Habaña phone book, I was overwhelmed with requests for look-ups. I wanted to somehow post the entire directory but I just did not have the capacity to do so. You can imagine my excitement last night when I discovered the entire directory online available for viewing, a CD for purchase, and there is a search option. I found my relatives on pg. 108.
The link is here at evendon.net
This simple phone directory stands as a monument to the truth of Cuba BC-- this is not the directory of a third world country. Truly, these pictures and listings of names are not worth a thousand words, they are priceless.
Michael Moore should take a look at this - one of many pages of listings for Clinicas Medicas. ( Medical Clinics)
Click on the photo a few times to enlarge:
[...] CUBA Reclaiming History [...]
This is great stuff, Ziva. I actually visited that site a few years ago when it first came up, but for whatever reason seem to forget it exists. Thanks for posting this.
Those who control the present, control the past. 1984 ... 25 years later.
Oh, Ziva, how do I explain the feeling of looking through that phone book? The only way I can possibly come close to describing it is the time after I had seen the Titanic exhibition for the first time. There they were, relics attesting to the existence of people forgotten after a sudden catastrophe plunged them to their deaths. The artifacts screamed silently out to us, spectators frozen in disbelief and anguish.
This is the feeling I got when looking through it. I found names of people related to me who are long gone. I barely knew some of them. Their voices and stories are lost forever, but they were real. They lived normal lives in a warm, prosperous country. They were embarked on their life's journey, totally unawares that suddenly, to their horror, life as they knew it would be engulfed by an evil ocean of communism.
Yep, that's what that phone book has reminded me of - Cuba as the Titanic.
They should do a coffee table book with all the old ads and pictures from 1958. Many would buy it.
The lefties would be shocked when Meyer Lansky wasn't on every page.