Abstract
After a military coup in 1952, Cuba entered in a dictatorship with extreme state repression. By 1958 a colonial fortress in the city of Matanzas became a torture and detention center known as Escuadrón 41. Illustrating a case of forgetting, its destruction presents an atypical case study that defying official master narratives. Here, I analyze how is a traumatic past remembered through the lens of conflictive ideologies by intertwining the concepts of place of memory, destruction, and cultural trauma, which provides an account of a peripheral place and its local significance in the process of defining Cuba.
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Acknowledgments
I appreciate Esteban Grau for the photogrammetry survey and 3D modeling while working together in Matanzas, Cuba, from which I continue learning. Theresa Singleton’s continuous support and guide has been essential. Some of the historical maps included here were originally gathered thanks to the efforts of Julio Elizalde y Josefina Bartlett, improved with the help of Boris Rodríguez and Johanset Orihuela, friends and colleagues to whom I will always be in debt. I must thank Paola Schiappacasse for revising the manuscript several times, and for her helpful comments and recommendations. I am grateful for the excellent attention received from the Spanish archives, especially the Archivo General Militar de Madrid. Special thanks to the Matanzas Archive personnel for their help, Carlos Torrent, Tatiana Alpízar, and María del Rosario Ramírez. It has been a pleasure to interview Austreberto Arestuche, whose traumatic experiences in the Escuadrón 41 contribute to understanding unknown aspects of the torture center. This research is possible thanks to the support of friends and institutions, including Silvia Hernández Godoy, Isabel Hernández Campos, Bielka Cantillo, Leonel Pérez Orozco, Centro Provincial de Patrimonio Cultural de Matanzas, the Museum Castillo de San Severino, and the Oficina del Conservador de la Ciudad de Matanzas. Part of this project was supported by the Goekjian/Latin America and the Caribbean Research Grant (2021) from the Syracuse University Moynihan Institute, as well as the Syracuse University Department of Anthropology’s Summer Superfunding.
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Hernández de Lara, O. Memory, Destruction, and Traumatic Pasts in Cuba: The Escuadrón 41 During Batista’s Dictatorship, 1958. Int J Histor Archaeol 27, 626–647 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-022-00666-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-022-00666-3