I remember when the little boat got to the docks in the Isle of Pines, there were peanut vendors on the wharf. We, being children, ran to them to buy a package, wrapped in brown paper in the form of a narrow cone. And mother calling us “Hurry up! Hurry up!” because she wanted us to be among the first ones to arrive at the check point of the prison.
When we arrived, the guards told us that we first had to go and take a look at a paper nailed to a wooden post to the side. “There are the names of those we executed last night,” they said. “If you find the name of your relative there, then there will be no visit. If his name is not there, then you can come back.”
I did not understand very well what that meant, only that everybody was very happy when we could not find my father’s or my uncle’s names there. So we turned to the entrance and to the search, which was the necessary first step.
We were carrying bags with food for our father and uncle, and the bag had to be left with a guard for them to rummage through its contents. We would get them back later, ransacked, with many item missing, torn, soiled. In the meantime, the women received a thorough body search, which set many to tears since it involved complete disrobing and even sometimes a vaginal inspection.
After picking up the pieces of the bag, we were marched inside the prison, passing in front of guards who would yell at us “Go ahead. Fatten them up! Fatten them up! We will kill them tomorrow” And we had to pass in front of the poles where the men had been tied for the executions the night before. You could still see the blood stains…
We, the children of the political prisoners, were marginalized. We could not study a career. We were separated, branded. But I was quite proud of my father and uncle and I have always have a lot of respect for the political prisoners of the Isle of Pines.