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Nadia,
your mission was completed
BY
ULISES ESTRADA LESCAILLE —Special for Granma
International—
IT was
on Sunday, February 9, 2003, at the Havana Book
Fair, that my friend Juan Carretero spoke to me of a
vague message he’d received concerning Nadia’s
death. I immediately sat down to write an e-mail to
our mutual friend Heidi Specogna, whom I met in Cuba
with Nadia during the filming of a documentary on
the life of this remarkable woman. Unbeknownst to
me, only the day before Heidi had sent me the
following message: Nadia is no longer with us
Yesterday, February 7, in the afternoon, our friend
closed her eyes forever. We will keep her in
our hearts. We are all very sad.
Heidi
wrote me back on the 10th: Yes, it’s true that
Nadja left us on Friday, February 7. I saw her two
days before. She was conscious and her final words
were VIVA CUBA (Long Live Cuba). Our hearts
are with you. (SIC)
It’s
true; Nadja Bider had disappeared physically (for
us, Nadia Bunke is the Spanish spelling, while her
surname is that of her husband).
Nadia,
raised in a revolutionary family, had left us
forever. A Russian Jew, her maternal great
grandfather was banished to Siberia during the 19th
century for fighting injustice. Her father
participated in the 1905 Russian Revolution, and her
husband of 65 years, Erich Bunke, was a German
communist.
Living
in Germany, their political affiliations were enough
for them to warrant persecution by the fascist
hordes. In light of this situation, they decided to
emigrate to the Soviet Union, but the paperwork took
so long and the opportunity was lost. So they left
for Argentina in 1935 with their little son Olaf.
They immediately became members of the Argentine
communist party and their house became the
clandestine scene of secret meetings, producing
propaganda, and an arms warehouse for communists,
also persecuted in the South American country.
Tamara was born two years later, her name mutually
agreed on by both parents: Haydée Tamara Bunke
Bider.
It was
a time of intense revolutionary struggle from the
shadows. Her children were raised with the warmth of
progressive teachings. For that very reason, 16
years later when they decided to return to Germany,
then the Democratic German Republic (GDR), Tamara
expressed a desire to remain in Argentina with her
friends from the Young Communists.
Nadia
convinced her to wait until she was an adult, to
experience Germany’s form of socialism. Later,
when she was ready, they would let her leave home.
And that’s what transpired; Nadia never abandoned
her beautiful role as mother and political role
model.
In May
1961, Tamara told her mother that she wanted to
travel to Cuba. She’d decided to take part in the
socialist struggle in Latin America. Nadia accepted
the separation with great sorrow, but understood
that the revolutionary task her daughter had
embraced was fundamental.
Tamara
arrived in Cuba on the 12th of that same month.
Erich, a member of the Cuba Solidarity Committee,
was invited to the island in October and had the
opportunity to spend two weeks with his daughter.
Nadia wrote and called Tamara regularly until July
1966, when she received her daughter’s final
letter. All her letters were dated Prague to hide
Tania’s true whereabouts.
In
October 1967, Nadia and Erich were called to Havana
where they were informed of their daughter’s
honorable mission and of her heroic death in combat.
It was then that I met her personally. She knew
about me from a letter Tamara had written that I was
unaware of.
I then
began to write the second part of my book Tania:
la guerilla inolvidable (Tania: The
Unforgettable Guerilla), in the Havana Libre hotel;
Nadia and Erich were staying in an adjoining room.
Page for page, she went over everything I wrote. Her
ongoing observations were completely valid, so much
so that I asked them both to sign my book along with
me. She was completely familiar with the content of
Che’s Diary in Bolivia and my work on Tania, and
planned an important mission: spreading the truth
about her daughter’s life as a revolutionary, her
political relationship with Che, and her heroic
death.
She
made great efforts to dispel the lies of mercenary
authors who attempted to slander Tania. A playwright
who, for financial gain, portrayed Tania as Che’s
lover in one of his plays was even put on trial in
the German Democratic Republic.
But
that wasn’t the only battle to defend her daughter’s
dignity and exalted revolutionary example. Security
services from both the current Russian Republic and
the former German Federal Republic gave her an
official certificate denying the lie that Tamara had
been a spy for the USSR and GDR secret services. And
this is how she boldly took the offensive against
the lies published about Tamara who became Tania and
also Laura Gutiérrez Bauer.
Nadia
was a natural, talkative person with an
extraordinary memory despite her age. One of her
dreams was to be able to bury Tamara’s remains.
She wrote to President Fidel Castro, asking him not
to cease efforts to uncover them and, when found, to
bring them to rest in Cuba forever. Fidel made Nadia
that promise and on December 30, 1998, participated
in the sad honor of placing Tania’s remains in the
Che Monument Complex in Santa Clara, Cuba
alongside
those of Che and his comrades in arms who died in
Bolivia. Tamara has remained an eternal example of a
female Latin American patriot who gave her generous
blood in the name of justice in Our America.
And so
Nadia said: I have lost a daughter, but gained many
Cuban children.
In the
new book I am writing on Tania’s clandestine work
(Nadia had read various chapters), I wrote the
following dedication:
TO
NADIA BUNKE
For
accepting me as a son for more than 35 years. For
your valiant and unselfish attitude towards Tamara’s
revolutionary sacrifice. For your tireless defense
of Tania’s achievements in the face of cowards who
have tried to tarnish the heroism she spread in
revolutionary struggle, until she gave her own life.
For the love I feel for you.
Today,
to this adorable woman, communist, revolutionary,
whom I loved from the bottom of my heart, I can only
say: Nadia, your mission was completed. You may now
rest in peace.
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