Two women, one revolutionary ideal.
One of the cruelest acts of the Batista dictatorship was the assassination, after horrible tortures, of the combatants Lydia Doce and Clodomira Acosta.
One of the cruelest acts of the Batista dictatorship was the assassination, after horrible tortures, of the combatants Lydia Doce and Clodomira Acosta.
September 12th, 1958 was a dark day for these two humble Cuban women. Dozens of henchmen in patrol cars were driven by an informer to a building on Rita Street, in the Juanelo neighborhood of Havana.
Lidia and Clodomira, revolutionaries linked to the struggle in the Sierra Maestra, were hiding there. Also in that building were their comrades in ideals Alberto Alvarez, Reynaldo Cruz, Onelio Dampiel and Leonardo Valdes.
The four combatants were savagely riddled with bullets that same day. Reynaldo was shot 52 times, as was later confirmed in the morgue.
Meanwhile, the two women were taken by force and transported to the police station. From then on they were subjected to countless tortures, impossible to describe.
Lidia was 42 years old at the time of her death and was a messenger and trusted person of Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara.
Che would later write about her: «When I evoke her name there is something more than an affectionate appreciation towards the revolutionary without blemish, because she had a particular devotion towards me (…) she took to Santiago de Cuba and Havana the most compromising papers, all the communications of our column, the issues of the newspaper El Cubano Libre, she also brought paper, she brought medicines, she brought, in short, whatever was necessary…».
Clodomira was only 22 years old and was an effective messenger of the Chief of the Revolution, Fidel Castro, in command of the José Martí Column No. 1, with headquarters in La Plata, Sierra Maestra.
Both were born in the eastern part of the country, the first was from Holguin and the second from Manzanillo. They were recognized for being brave, audacious, of great courage and courage, faithful to the cause they defended with love.
After so much pain, without getting a single word out of them, in the early morning of the 15th, already dying, stuffed in sacks full of stones, they were put on a boat at the naval post at the bottom of the Castle of La Chorrera in the area of La Puntilla, and already out to sea, a mile away from the mouth of the Almendares River, they sunk them in the water and pulled them out, until, not obtaining any results either, in the early morning of the 17th they let them fall into the sea, where their corpses disappeared.
Their silence and the tortures to which both were subjected united them in the noble purpose of achieving the just cause for which they had given their youth and even their lives. Three months later the longed-for Revolution triumphed gloriously and for which so much beautiful blood had been shed.
The example and the names of Lidia Acosta and Clodomira Ferrals have not been forgotten. Cubans today are obliged to work and defend each new revolutionary project with the same heroism and greatness that those women showed.
Written by: Imandra González
