Operation Pedro Pa, considered the largest child exodus of the twentieth century in the West, “saved 14,048 children from the Castro hecatomb,” said in Miami (USA) the writer and feminist Ileana Fonts in recalling this Saturday the 60th anniversary of the exodus.
“I was one of those girls. Informally, the program was called Operation Peter Pan. This is, to this day, the largest boy and girl rescue operation in history,” she wrote. Sources in an article published this Saturday in the Cuban digital affairs newspaper Cubanet.
The architect of Operation Pedro Pa was Monsignor Bryan Walsh, who was in charge of receiving the minors who were then transferred to camps, orphanages or adoptive families.
Walsh realized that there were many cases of Cuban minors arriving in the U.S. just looking for a safe place and contacted the administration of former President Dwight Eisenhower, who provided the resources to support the program.
The operation, which began on December 26, 1960 and officially ended on October 23, 1962, with the suspension of all commercial flights between the United States and Cuba, took place shortly after the triumph of the revolution. Cuban when a man brought Walsh a boy named Pedro to seek refuge while his parents managed to leave Cuba.
“All departures were by plane – by PanAm, National and KLM – to the United States, and the first flight departed from ‘José Martí’ Airport on December 26, 1960. In this flight escaped just two Cuban children, “Fonts recalls.
“On the 28th two more arrived, six on the 30th and 12 on the 31st. Never in its history had the United States Government paid for a program for refugee children,” he added.
“Little by little, in order not to arouse much suspicion in Havana, Cuban boys and girls arrived. The Matecumbe camp and the barracks in Kendall were filled as Walsh developed a national network of Catholic parishes. (…) in 35 states of the Union: New Mexico, Nebraska, Delaware, Indiana, Colorado and Florida, among others “, recalls Fonts.
The former director of the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora, based in Miami, details that “ninety-five social welfare agencies managed this relocation.”
“Of the 14,048 minors who left Cuba alone in those 23 months, 6,584 were placed with family friends or relatives already established in the U.S.; 7,464 were under the protection of the Cuban Children’s Program of the Catholic Bureau and other Protestant and Jewish agencies, “said Fuentes, author of the book” Cuba Without Leaders. A Feminist Approach. “
The American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora is preparing the exhibition “Operation Pere Pa: 60th Anniversary of the Cuban Child Exodus”, with a map with the names of all the then children who traveled without their parents during the operation, indicated the current director, Carmen Valdivia, who also came to the US as “Pedro Pan.”
The exhibition, with photos and documents donated by people who came to the US via this route, will serve to reopen the museum next January, after being closed due to the covid-19 pandemic, Valdivia said during an interview with MegaTV in November past.
According to Valdivia, not all the importance that this exodus of more than 14,000 children deserves has been given. “Little is known, partly because at first it was a bit secretive (…) and also because the media (sometimes) doesn’t like to say that one ran away from communism,” Valdivia concluded.