Manuel Pablo Ascunce Domenech

He was born in Sagua la Grande, province of Villa Clara, a young Cuban who was murdered while teaching literacy at the hands of counter-revolutionary bands.

Manuel Pablo Ascunce Domenech, son of Evelia and Manuel, she a housewife and he an employee. His paternal grandparents were Eladio and Guillermina and his maternal grandparents, Vicente and Juana Rosa. Fate willed that this birth occur three days before another anniversary of José Martí's birthday was commemorated, as if chance had wanted to bestow this gift upon the Apostle of Cuba.

On January 23, 1947, nearly two years old, he was baptized in the Parish Church of Sagua. His godparents were Guillermina Hernández Santos and Arnaldo Hernández Solloa. It was a humble family, with the characteristics typical of the pseudo-republic era.

When Manuel was two years old, the family moved to the capital, to a residence located at Justicia No. 574, between Santa Felicia and Santa Ana, in the Luyanó neighborhood. His childhood was happy, surrounded by the love of his parents, grandparents, and his younger sister Mambla, his childhood companion, for whom he felt great affection. At the age of seven, his parents proposed that he make his first communion, to which he responded: "I don't want anything to do with priests." His insistence on this was so strong that Evelia and Manuel decided not to prepare him in Catholic doctrine, nor to speak with him about the subject again.

He completed his primary education in the schools "Santa Marta" and "El Éxito," in the Luyanó neighborhood itself, where he finished sixth grade in the 1957-58 school year, at the age of thirteen. From a very early age he proved to be a disciplined, calm, and studious student, with a serious character, though he enjoyed games and making jokes. He was always an example to his only sister Mambla. Evelia recounts that during Manuel's childhood, he loved animals and was generous. On one occasion his father bought him a pet to play ball with, but she noticed its absence, so she asked Manolito about it, to which he responded: "that he had lent it to a little friend because he didn't have one."

On several occasions his sister Mambla, who liked to play with sparrows that fell in the yard, watched as Manolito tried to return the chicks to their nests. He was very clean and vain; when he fell on the floor and got up, he never wiped his hands on his clothes, but rather with them held high, he would run to the bathroom to wash them.

He pursued secondary education at the "América" school, located on Herrera and Guanabacoa, Luyanó, where he took seventh grade and began eighth grade at another campus of the school in the same neighborhood. He loved parties very much, had a youthful character that earned him the confidence and affection of his classmates. He was a dark-haired boy, of fair complexion and very expressive eyes. He possessed extreme nobility, had nothing of his own, and felt great sensitivity for everything around him. Lately he was already taller than his father, according to his mother, and he always listened attentively to all of Fidel's speeches, as was customary in the family.

During his student years he joined in the defense of the Homeland, when faced with the mercenary attack at Playa Girón in April 1961, he was present in the guards for the protection of his secondary school if circumstances required it. He joined the Association of Rebel Youth (AJR).

During the Literacy Campaign he did not hesitate to separate from home to go wherever necessary. At Fidel's call to join the "Conrado Benítez" Brigades, Manuel requested admission to their ranks on March 23, 1961. He was barely a child—as Fidel Castro himself said—who had also sacrificed his vacation, arriving there, just like 100,000 other young people, just like tens and tens of thousands of other children and young people, sons, of course, of tens and tens of thousands of families, many of them, the vast majority, children of the working class.

Manuel departed on July 13, 1961 in the morning hours headed to the Literacy Campaign Camp in Varadero, from the new building constructed by the Revolution for the América Secondary School, the school that currently bears his name, located on Enna Street, between Manuel Pruna and Rosa Enríquez, in Luyanó. During the training days at the Granma Camp in Varadero, he received minimum technical training for literacy work, and was given ID No. 72792, with his uniform and lantern that identified him as a member of the "Conrado Benítez" Brigade.

Manuel Ascunce was assigned to teach literacy in the province of Las Villas, in the Limones Cantero area, municipality of Trinidad, where he taught literacy in the homes of farmers Colina and Joseíto, a stay that was interrupted when he became ill and was forced to travel to La Habana. In a letter addressed to his parents on September 4, 1961, he told them: "Mami, tell Papi that when he comes, if he can, bring me a frozen cake, because the farmers here have never eaten one, and the other day they said they wanted to eat sweets..."

Evelia recounts that they brought the cake in a box with lots of dry ice and it arrived intact; Manolito didn't want to eat it and told them: "No Mami, leave it for them because they've never eaten one... I'll eat it when I return to La Habana."

His parents visited him at these families' homes on two more occasions. Manuel liked to eat with his utensils. On one of those visits, Evelia noticed the difficulty he was having eating with only a spoon as a utensil, approached him and told him she would send him his set of utensils, to which Manolito responded: "Mima, that would be an insult to this family."

Later he moved to Pedro Lantigua's house at his own suggestion, and proposed the change to his colleague Anaís, who held the position of Technical Advisor for the Zone, considering that it was a difficult place for her, complex for a woman, and because of the responsibility she was undertaking. The house of Pedro Lantigua and Mariana de la Viña was located on the Palmarito Farm, in the Río Ay neighborhood, in the Limones Cantero area, municipality of Trinidad, in a coffee-growing zone of difficult access with an extension of thirty caballerías and had been seized from its owner six months earlier. Precisely, one of this man's sons was a member of the band that murdered Manuel and Pedro.

From the words of Manuel's mother it is known that they did not visit him at Lantigua's home, but they did know that this family, especially Mariana, treated him with great affection, and everyone loved him. He always felt very comfortable in this house, as he liked children, and he loved horseback riding. Lantigua liked to hunt jutías and Manolito accompanied him on his hunts. In one of his letters he tells his parents about how delicious a roasted jutía was in the mountains, as he had never eaten one before.

During his stay at the Lantigua home, attacks by counter-revolutionary bands on the area increased, so orders were received to evacuate practically all the literacy workers from this place, but Manuel insisted on remaining at his post, saying that he had to finish his work in order to return like everyone else at the proper time.

He was always at Lantigua's side in the defense and protection of the house, the family, and the interests of the Revolution. On November 26, 1961, in the afternoon, Mariana made coffee collected, grown and roasted on the farm itself for everyone, but when it was already being distributed, it didn't even reach Pedro's hands, as they were surprised by presumed militiamen, who turned out to really be bandits. Mariana perceived the evildoers' deception and went out in defense of her own, even tried to make it appear that Manuel was one of her nine sons. When asked who the teacher was, Ascunce answered: "I am the teacher!" Which enraged the bandits and they attacked him and Pedro in the most brutal and cowardly manner, and also took Pedrito with them.

Mariana followed them and managed to snatch her son from them, going in search of help and reinforcements but the weather conditions, the darkness of the night, and the difficulties of the terrain did not allow her to prevent in time the bandits' intentions.

Meanwhile the bandits continued their assault on them, through insults, threats, beatings, stab wounds—14 in total—struggles, wrestling and torture. When they had them half-dead, they decided to hang them and strung them up on two branches of an acacia tree, a short distance from the house, at approximately eight o'clock at night. Thus the bodies of Pedro and Manuel remained lifeless, for defending the work of education and remaining faithful to the cause of the Revolution.

Manuel's murder took place in Limones Cantero, Palmarito farm, along with his student Pedro Lantigua Ortega, at the hands of the criminals, Quesada Braulio Amador Quesada (principal executor), Pedro González Sánchez and Julio Emilio Carretero Escajadillo (chief of a command).

Their bodies were brought to the town, where peasants and literacy workers paid them an emotional and well-deserved tribute; later Manuel's was transferred to the capital, where a sea of green berets of the Literacy Army, mingled with the entire people, gave the last salute to

The funeral service was conducted by then President Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado. At Colón Cemetery, the director of Finlay Military Hospital, Dr. Nicolás Monzón Pérez (Pompi), native of Encrucijada, presented the autopsy results, according to which the victims were hanged with barbed wire.