I was born in a communist police state.
When I was four years old, a group of armed men knocked on my door asking for my grand uncle. When my grand uncle went to the door, all he did was said "don't hurt the boy". He was meaning me. My grand uncle was arrested for stealing food to feed us. He worked on a collective farm. Living in a house ment for two, there was seven. My grand uncle, my father, my mother, my grand mother, my grand father, my grand aunt, and myself.
When I was seven, I remember that seeing a man being chased down the street. There was what looked like a jeep, expect it wasn't. It was Russian I think. On the jeep was the police. All I remember is after the jeep passed my view, I heard machine gun fire.
I have lost track of how many times folks disappeared during the night by the secert police. All for mentioning something about Castro and the Government.
I remember being take out of class and being thought how to throw a grenade, how to build an AK-47, how to work an RPG. I remember being taken to farms and forced to work during the summers. I remember hearing ll the time how the "evil yankee empire to the north" was going to inavde and cut off our heads.
I also remember my Grandfather telling me about Cuba before the Castro Regime. About how the family had a sugercane farm and a chicken farm. About the hotels that we owned and how everyone had cars. How the city use to be so wonderful. How the church and god was allowed to be worshipped in public.
You want more information, because just thinking about it brings me to tears.