Red Cross Crossing - Rosa, Antonio and Xiomara

December, 1962

In the first stage of an agreement with the United States, Cuba releases 1,113 Bay of Pigs invaders in exchange for $53 million in medicine and baby food which would be delivered by the Red Cross.
Antonio was able to find passage for himself, his mother Rosa and sister Xiomara on those same Red Cross boats that were returning to the USA after the boats left supplies for children and medicine in May of 1963.

At the time Antonio worked at the airport for American owned Pan American Airlines where he started out with in 1955 in the Clipper Passenger Club and in time moved to customer service until 1963 when he left Cuba. Antonio, because of his job, knew many people in important positions at Embassy and Ambassadors to Cuba as they traveled through the Jose Marti Airport in Rancho Boyeros, but the one person that he went to was a friend who worked for the Swiss Embassy. Antonio knew of the boats coming to Cuba and that in return Cuba would release many of the prisoners from the Bay of Pigs invasion and anyone else who had sponsorship in the USA, up to a certain number.

Antonio’s first wife Isabel had left earlier in the year with their son Antonio Alberto “Tony” who was 3 month old Isabel had relatives in Miami and was able to leave Cuba first with their support and sponsorship.
Xiomara tells me she was 16 years old at the time and did not want to leave; she was living in Cuba with her mother Rosa,her father Jose Fernandez along with her maternal grandmother Josefina (left: photo of Josefina Lopez Carbonell) which she loved very much as well as Antonio. Her father Jose ended up staying because his family owned a house and a store and did not want to lose their properties. At the time, most Cubans thought that they were leaving to return soon and under Castro’s regime once you left you lost all your belongings, including your properties.

Antonio, Xiomara and Rosa were able to get on the penultimate boat leaving Cuba. Xiomara remembers spending all day at the immigration docks in line with no food other than what they had brought. From her account 8-10 hours of waiting while the processing went on. She remembers uncontrollably crying, which was natural for a 16 year old leaving behind her father, grandmother and all the friends she as a teenager had at that age. Xiomara tells me that Antonio actually had to slap her " una cachetada" to control her emoyions and make her come to her senses that the decision they had made to leave Cuba was the right one. Xiomara tells of the overnight trip to Florida, that that night mattresses were given out to the refugees to lie on the floor of the cargo ship to get their sleep. The 3 of them spent a day in the refugee center at Port Fort Everglade before being cleared to go with their relatives. Once in the USA they lived in the apartment, which Isabel had with son Tony.
( Right : Isabel and Xiomara reading the newspaper at the apartment in which they lived in Hialeah)

June, 2012- Story was written with permission and consent of Antonio Lopez-Rogina & Xiomara Juchiewicz


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