Palma City, the German city that was once in Cuba
The town of Palma City was founded in the early 20th century by a group of German immigrants, on the northern coast of the province of Camagüey. It is said that its perfectly laid out streets and houses were reminiscent of the country estates of the Germanic state of the old continent.
They were the American owners of the San Jose Fruit Company; who
had sold the land of a so-called cheap paradise, the perfect space to make their dream colony thrive.
On May 12, 1905, after signing the corresponding contracts, the first group of immigrants reached the beaches of La Gloria Bay, where beyond a few docks rickety from saltpeter and age, there were only swamps to clear.
The settlement began to prosper, the citrus groves to flourish, and it was not long before a series of shops, the church, the promenades and the cinema, made rural life in the town of Palma City much more bearable and picturesque.
In order not to let their roots die, they apparently forced themselves to practice the mother tongue as the first lesson in every family. In turn, they maintained the customs of their country in every traditional celebration.
The beginning of the decline of their community came during the Second World War. There is a strong historical probability that the inhabitants of this town collaborated with the German submarines that carried out the naval attack near Nuevitas and sank two cargo ships. Since Havana had at that time declared war on the Nazis.
Ernest Hemingway had supposed that the submarines had their hiding places in some of the corners of this coast. He searched in vain, but he never found a single trace of the submersibles.
In any case, Palma City was in the writer's sights when he observed its coasts for many months between 1942 and 1943. The daring fisherman and his yacht Pilar were lucky not to encounter any Nazi submarines at all during their adventure.
Later, the German settlers were naturally accused of providing provisions and information to the German military. Afterwards, most of the villagers were locked up in concentration camps and only a few women and children remained in the town. However, the certainty of such a conspiracy has never been recorded.
At the end of the war, the Germans began to willingly assimilate Cuban fishermen, farmers and coal miners into the city, which gradually made their roots disappear. The children's homeland was no longer that of their parents.
A little over a century after its birth, the mythical German colony has practically lost its identity and is barely surviving the end of time.
Today, in the town of Palma City, a community in the municipality of Esmeralda, even the old church has succumbed to the inexorable course of time, apathy and neglect. Today, only scattered fragments of the original surnames and some mestizo vestiges of their typical physique remain.
All that remains, miraculously, is a house that seems to be frozen in time, refusing to disappear forever like the rest of a story that no one has ever taken it upon themselves to write.
Photo: Internet.
Comments