Raúl Gómez García

He was born at house number 65 on Tamarindo Street, in Santos Suárez, Havana. He was the youngest of the children born to the marriage of Alfredo Gómez Bragnes and Virginia García Batista, both natives of Güines.

His father, a bookkeeper, was the breadwinner of the large family until he was forced to stop working due to severe illness. The six children were all studying when their father died; Raúl was then eight years old.

During this period, Raúl attended kindergarten and first grade at a small school run by an aunt (Lucrecia Gómez), who had the opportunity to teach him his first letters.

The grave economic situation made itself felt in the Gómez García household. César, the eldest of the brothers, had established himself in Güines and took charge of young Raúl so that he could continue his studies. There in the town he completed second and third grades at the Arango y Parreño school. Later he returned to Havana and completed his primary studies at Public School No. 48.

The family environment provided all the conditions for vigorous elements of personality to develop in young Raúl, elements that would later define the course of his life. The love of the Homeland that Virginia had learned from her own people, she knew how to pass on to her descendants.

In that home he learned to love Cuba, its flag, and freedom. He came to understand the meaning of the words friendship and justice; he learned to venerate Martí, the sum and synthesis of all of this.

The life of the Apostle came to constitute for Raúl both an example and a goal to achieve. This feeling was reinforced when, once again in Güines, Raúl began his studies at the Upper Primary School; under the guidance of his Social Studies teacher, Valentín Cuesta Jiménez, he began to display his civic initiatives. From that moment on, the teacher, man of letters, and journalist exercised political and cultural guardianship over the adolescent.

Young Raúl Gómez García came to preside over the Martiana Association and at his initiative the Martiano Corner was created in the school. Within that institution he established that during roll call, at meetings each member would respond with a thought from the Apostle.

The influence of Professor Cuesta Jiménez was decisive during this period of formation and definition of his character and temperament.

Imbued with the noblest ideas, Raúl would find in his teacher such a degree of identification that he would designate him as his "spiritual father," and it was the professor who awakened in the student many of his tastes for artistic expression: music and poetry.

Another facet of Raúl's life as a student unfolded as an athlete. He practiced with eagerness and perseverance volleyball and basketball, having excelled notably in the former, both in Upper Primary School and in the institutes of Güines and La Víbora.

In order not to interrupt his studies, from which he would be separated due to economic reasons, Raúl was forced to remain in his brother's house in Güines, since the Institute of Secondary Education located there was the only one that did not require its students to wear uniforms, and it offered the advantage of proximity to his residence, which eliminated travel expenses.

By this date, the year 1943, when Raúl entered the Institute at age 14, the nation was particularly difficult. The first Batista regime was ending with its tyrannical policies and its surrender to Yankee imperialism. National life was governed by long and sad periods of stagnation, as a consequence of short harvests. World War II was felt among our working families through growing unemployment, the high cost of living, increased speculation and black market activity.

In the agitated environment that the student body provided, Raúl demonstrated his rebelliousness and channeled his concerns. He protested against manifestations of injustice, abuses, and privileges that characterized that society of exploiters and exploited.

The pages of the newspaper El estudiantil, to which he contributed, served as a vehicle for raising diverse topics of interest to young students. Its brief pages also contained denunciations of arbitrary acts. Such was the case of the appointment of a new school director, who obtained the position through his connections with government officials. The situation took on greater significance because the position rightfully belonged to his teacher, Valentín Cuesta Jiménez, who had the required years of service as well as valuable merits.

Raúl Gómez García's participation in that exposé earned him the trust and affection of his classmates and led the Institute director to accuse him of being a "troublemaker" and attempt to expel him from the school.

Faced with such a situation, his brother managed to obtain Raúl's transfer to the La Víbora Institute, where he arrived in November 1947, accompanied by an outstanding record in which he had won three prizes in a single year, making him eligible for free tuition in 1945, which had initially been denied to him. Raúl graduated with his bachelor's degree in the 1947-1948 school year at the La Víbora school.

Raúl's stay in the town of Mayabeque left its mark on the young man. During his time there his activity included work in the municipal newspaper where historical works were published.

In Havana, while he was in his fifth year of high school at the La Víbora Institute, he began his first jobs to contribute to the family economy. His first job was as a messenger in an office located in the old Lonja del Comercio in Old Havana, which he decided to leave due to disagreement with his boss's criteria.

A short time later he found work in a commercial house, where he worked as a clerk. The position did not suit his restless and dynamic character. He did not remain long in that job.

Raúl had defined his political affiliation and joined the Orthodox Party. He became part of a group of young people seeking new directions for the nation's future. His passionate and vehement character, his love for the homeland, found a hopeful response in the preaching of Eduardo Chivás.

At Prado Street 109, a meeting place for Orthodox Youth, he frequently found himself with his companions, with whom he shared his opinions about the necessary changes that could be brought about through public honesty, dignity, and shame in a bloodied homeland.

At the University of Havana, after obtaining his high school diploma, he enrolled in the Law program, which he studied for two years. However, through the mediation of his older brothers, he began to work as a substitute teacher at Baldor School, where they worked. At the same time he enrolled in the School of Pedagogy at the University of Havana, studies that he interrupted to participate in the assault on the Moncada Barracks.

The military coup of March 10, 1952, shook him as no other event had, and his indignation took form in a manifesto: Revolution Without Youth, in which he expressed his deep feelings at seeing the homeland desecrated.

The document was a relentless denunciation, and at the same time an impassioned call to the people to reject and overthrow the usurpers of power.

The writing was a devastating argument against the insolence wielded by the tyrant, who claimed to call the military uprising a revolution.

Raúl left his house that day carrying in his hands the pages written feverishly and all at once, determined to make himself heard. He returned discouraged. No newspaper, not even at the University, wanted to publish it. His future became well defined at that moment. The time to resist firmly had begun. Against the military coup, the decisive combat of the best sons of the homeland must be opposed; those who desire the best for the homeland. In this sentiment he was animated and guided by the luminous idea of the Apostle José Martí.

The first action took the form of a newspaper, which printed on mimeograph, appeared under the name Son los mismos and was published weekly, under the direction of Raúl Gómez García. Working together on the edition were Haydée and Abel Santamaría, Melba Hernández, Jesús Montané, Lidia Castro, and Elda Pérez. This first underground newspaper achieved a circulation of between 300 and 500 copies.

In May 1952, the group that gathered around Abel Santamaría made contact with the young lawyer Fidel Castro. An account by Montané explains how the meeting took place on May 1, 1952, at the Colón Cemetery, at an event held there in memory of the worker Carlos Rodríguez, who had been killed in protest against the "Gag Decree," during the presidency of Carlos Prío Socarrás.

From that moment on, Fidel exercised his leading role in the group that published Son los mismos, for which a new name emerged: El Acusador.

The love the group felt for its newspaper made them try to maintain both publications. The great effort this required and the lack of resources meant that work was concentrated on El Acusador.

One of the places where Son los Mismos was published was in Raúl Gómez García's own house, at Juan Bruno Zayas No. 8, although they were forced to change the printing location several times.

El Acusador was published for the third and last time around the date of Eduardo Chivás's death. Due to an informant, seven of its editors were arrested, including Abel, Montané, and Raúl. After several days in the castle of El Príncipe prison, they were tried and acquitted.

As a result of these activities, the director of Baldor School issued a circular written in contemptuous terms against the young teacher Raúl Gómez García, which led to a conflict that resulted in his dismissal after his earned wages were withheld.

Dr. Melba Hernández filed the corresponding complaint with the Ministry of Labor on June 1, 1953, although the school's owner's complicity with the Batista regime favored his injustice.

Advised by Melba, Raúl continued to present himself at the school, but he was always made to leave without being called to work. During that time he dedicated himself to giving private lessons and to reviewing and preparing theses for university students.

The weeks of June and July were ones of intense work. Visits to the apartment at 0 and 25 followed one after another. There were numerous days when he slept away from home.

On the night of July 24, as his mother told us, Raúl told me he was not coming home to sleep. I knew he was editing an underground newspaper and he made me believe that was the reason, since the newspaper had to be moved constantly from place to place so it wouldn't fall into the hands of the police. As usual, I prepared the bed and made his brothers believe that Raúl was coming to sleep. Nobody here knew anything about his constant absences. What he told me didn't surprise me, since I had already become accustomed to it.

Now... when he didn't sleep at home, he was accustomed to calling the next day to let me know if he wasn't coming to lunch. The 25th he didn't come, nor did he call at lunch time, and I said nothing so the others wouldn't notice. At 5 in the morning of the 26th I woke my daughter Olga and told her to stay with her brother Héctor, who was sick, and I went to my son César's house to tell him that Raúl had been absent from home for two nights. I couldn't take it anymore. We decided to go to Montané Oropesa's house, but he had moved and we couldn't find out his new address.

I had forgotten something. Listen... on the night of the 24th a young man I didn't know came looking for Raúl. I said to him: "Ah! You're also part of the gang," he laughed and answered me: "Yes, old lady... I'm also part of the gang." Before leaving he gave me a card where he wrote down the phone number of the lower part of his house. Later I found out that young man was Boris Luis Santa Coloma."

I'm telling you this because, not finding Montané's house, my son César asked me for the card and called Boris's house. There they told him that Boris had been absent from home for two days and that they supposed he was at the regattas in Varadero, he had said that before he left. We returned home and my children were listening to the news on the radio about the Moncada, I turned to my son César and said to him: Raúl is right there!

In the early morning hours of the epic July 26th, gathered at the little Siboney farm, the combatants listened to Fidel read the Moncada Manifesto, prepared by Raúl Gómez García. When he finished, Raúl's voice rose. Those who had shared the car with him from Havana to Santiago de Cuba already knew the verses of the poem heard there, to which he had spontaneously given the title: We Are Already in Combat. For our honor as men we are already in combat.

Let us ridicule the tyrant's selfish attitude.
Let us fight today or never for a Cuba without slaves.
Let us feel deeply in our hearts the feverish thirst for the Homeland,
Let us place on the peak of the turquoise sky the solitary star.

With dawn, each one will take the position that corresponds to him in this action that would shake the nation's conscience.

Raúl was part of the group that took the Saturnino Lora civilian hospital, along with Abel, Melba, and Haydée, among others. Barely upon arriving at that place which they took by surprise, the first shots from the barracks, located at the back of the hospital, began to ring out. The combatants positioned there realized that the element of surprise had failed and that the soldiers had opened fire. The hours that followed were anguishing.

The testimony of a hospital employee makes it possible to reconstruct part of the events that occurred inside the Saturnino Lora in the early morning hours, when the plan for the assault had already failed.

Some young people, among them Raúl, were heading toward the back of the hospital when they encountered an employee and told him that they had killed Batista and that "they had to protect this." They then took cover in a storage and maintenance area. From there they tried to find a way to reach another hospital entrance.

Raúl turned to the employee again and asked him if he had something to write with. On a piece of paper the hospital employee gave him and with a pen he offered, he wrote something and handed it back: the address to which it should be sent after giving him money for stamps. Another combatant did the same. Raúl also gave him his wallet and wristwatch, in hopes that he would use them, and a pistol to keep. Then they tried to hide. The guards were already entering the hospital. Someone who had seen where they hid betrayed them. Right there they received the first blows from the hands of brutalized soldiers.

The heroic companions of the Moncada assault, Haydée and Melba, related to the martyr's mother what happened, adding: We were on the floor of the Officers' Club, prisoners. They brought in a young man brutally beaten, who couldn't stand and fell to the ground.

When they sat him next to us, we recognized Raúl. They had knocked out his teeth, they had beaten him in such a savage way that we couldn't explain how he was able to remain seated. Later those barbarians assassinated him by beating him.

On the afternoon of that tragic day, his corpse appeared lying in an interior courtyard of the Moncada next to a weapon, to make it seem he had died in combat. His glorious death had occurred in the dungeons of the barracks.

On July 29, in the early afternoon hours, Virginia García received at her home in Santos Suárez the envelope containing the paper written in her beloved son's own handwriting, who had been missing for 5 days. On that piece of paper the mother read: "I fell prisoner, your son." The brief message would remain as mute testimony to the crime perpetrated by the hired assassins of the regime. Raúl was then 24 years old.