Portal de La Union
www.portaldelaunion.com
The Union, July 30, 2012. - The President of the Foundation Executive Committee Cante de las Minas and HE.
Mayor of La Union, Francisco Barnabas, and the Festival Director, Julio Garcia wanted to personally thank Antonio García Rozas, as a former miner, and Anastasia Moreno Martinez, widow of miner Manuel Escudero Martínez, for a lifetime around the mining La Union.
Barnabas wanted to greet Francis personally at home, prior to the Prologue Day tomorrow where both will be honored before the people.
Barnabas has highlighted, in words addressed to Anastasia Moreno, "is the people and himself unionense Festival del Cante de las Minas who have the great honor to offer this tribute for a whole entire life with her husband, symbolizing thereby also The sosteño of an entire people who have lived in mining. "
Anastasia was born in 1933 and her husband, Manuel Escudero Martínez, in 1937, "Puertollano we came to La Union to work and my husband came into the Cabezo Rajao".
There, in the Cabezo Rajao spent 7 months after the mine was going to Brumita Portman, also briefly, and finally to the Cierva where he worked about 15 years and where he retired.
In the early 60's, took the road to Puertollano to La Union in the aftermath of the mining town of La Mancha.
"He worked in the mine Calvo Sotelo Puertollano and there, we came twenties with three children already. We came because the mine that had been completed, was there a man saying that Rajao Cabezo moved. It came from there for at least 6 or 7, they came because they wanted to, of course, was his job, his way of life. "
Anastasia 18 years ago lost her husband but still remembers his voice calm and quiet that her husband had a full life and he could enjoy with his family until the end of his days.
Do not fit in memory the bad times of loneliness and anxiety, perhaps a symptom of the strength that women always show when fate forces them to confront what many are unprepared.
"When he went to the mine, I was with my children and my mother and the truth is that I have never been alone. Moreover, as we came in Puertollano 6 or 7 marriages also because we were together."
And in that search is the future where there is only the strength and integrity, "he said just worked hard and when not in the mine went hunting was what he liked."
Searched the Sierra Minera not only a land down roots but also a floor that will provide the necessary support he had already denied their homeland "in Puertollano were very good, is our land, but here at The Union has ido wrong and as we were. "
But he never forgot the dangers hidden in the mine, a kind of irrefutable truth that haunted him since he left his land.
"He knew that the mine would take away silicosis, his brother took her in the coal mine, but decided to come to the lead mines where even picked before silicosis, made no difference here than there."
In fact death gave him a second chance "was a big car accident in Puertollano, when we learned of the clinic and there were four priests. The doctor said he was not going to save, then saved and then did the same doctor after that, if not wanted, not to return to the mine. But the rooms of the mine were very greedy and he was not a pawn, he was of those who were with the hammer and, of course, earned more. "
After he withdrew from the mine, silicosis took over her lungs, but Anastasia confesses that "was not too bad of silicosis, the problem is that I was allergic to penicillin. Death came to him at any moment . I think they put more than necessary and not resisted. "
The memory that remains after he died 18 years ago is simple but also very large, this is when Anastasia is allowed a moment of weakness "he was partner and I was very lonely because my husband's company was very large . Fortunately I have been sons and daughters. "
His most precious legacy and fought by both looking for a better place to live.
After the meeting with Anastasia, Francisco and Julio Garcia Bernabe also wanted to spend a few moments the old mining Antonio Garcia Rozas and his family.
"Fewer and fewer miners who have worked in our mines," expressed the mayor "and that is why the entire municipality of La Union and the International Festival del Cante de las Minas want to pay this tribute."
Antonio Garcia was born on October 15, 1928 and began working in the mine with 18 years in 1946, a laborer in the mine of the Council on the way to Gorguel.
As recognized "worked as a laborer because he had nothing," he recalls with a laugh that only resigned earned 14 pesetas a day.
Poverty and work with the laborers raged whose task was to deszafrar remains after the drillers do the drills, "worked a hundred or two hundred feet deep and we drew lead."
The strength and poise of his youth when he started work ran into the dark reality, and that's when I thought "where did I get. It worked almost naked, we got the food and to cleanse us, with a bucket of water, we we washed each other in those days no one sang. Work was in that mine was not to sing, it was to suffer. "
Not many words are needed, "the mine was terrible."
Seems to describe in these words a tyrannical power that pierces the soul and which will make even long after they took him further, "It was only a year, but I can never forget. Many a night I dreamed that I got into a hole and not could go, I looked everywhere and then I realized that I could not breathe, "" It was very bad, you took the silicosis or were spending somewhere falls you something. "
Indeed, Antonio reconsidered and abandoned.
He left in the dark because there was no glory, no future.
"I left because my father told me that if I wanted mine, I stay there, but did not come home. And one night, working on my own, a hundred meters down the foreman told him,` I'll touch me ', he told me I had to wait to enter a new one, but I was clear and that night I went home and finished the mines for me. "
Although outside the mine and hoping for something better, after a year of titanic work in the mine, he went to do military service and returned "returned to the Peñarroya and worked in the quarry there Emilia chauffeur. I did not work inside the mine. "
But, as always, the corruption of the mine and this time chasing him behind a veil invisible.
Due to the large amount of dust raised by trucks formed the conditions for contracting silicosis.
"I could not close the windows because I choked and if left open, dust tragabas. And this continued until we got to water it, we stand up and said that if we stopped working watered. I spent very bad."
However, you can still tell your story and after many years struggling, silicosis has not been with him "get along, making many awards do not think has gotten worse."
Antonio retired back in 1972, just 44 years due to an accident with his truck to prevent him from performing any job, but both inside and outside the mine, "I have seen many die, many friends and many good people, but mines have that. Among silicosis, above all, and doctors who were paid by the company, while you were not dead and neither said they were in the third degree of silicosis and of course, until then still working, but not could ".
And there are many memories of death and desolation that he has left the mine, yet sadly recalls a moment in the beginning, "when I went there, I saw a boy who was 25 and he was alone in a corner doing nothing. When asked what was wrong and told me I had the third degree of silicosis and we knew we could not do anything, when he went to work like a beast, did everything, but he died from silicosis ahead. "
Now, at 83 years receive the recognition it deserves justice for all those who lost their lives, not in vain, but for the future of others, not by the glory that was buried in the dark solitude of the mine and where later generations no longer have to search for 14 pesetas "at first did not give much importance but then gave me joy and I think I deserve it. There are many others who deserve it but they were very few."
Source: Agencias
Privacy policy
- Legal notice
- Cookies