It is born with a piece of iron; it drags along this mysterious world that
stirs every heart; it grows nourished by all dark penalties and turns,
finally, increased with all the scalding tears. Dante was not in prison.”

That´s how José Martí described in his Political Imprisonment in Cuba, his
experience after been sentenced to hard labor in the quarries of San
Lazaro, when, with only 16 years, he suffered the weight of the arrogance
of the Spanish colonial rule, for aspiring to the freedom of the land of
his birth.

Several decades after Gonzalo de Quesada and other followers of the
Apostle of the ideas of the independence of Cuba, called for preserving
part of the quarries, then unused, to pay tribute to Marti and other many
patriots who were incarcerated there.

Thus, on January 28, 1952, the Marti Forge was created, the site of
extraordinary symbolic value in the national history, and that six decades
after its foundation it keeps an important social role.

David Hernandez Duany, director of the center, sees the imprint that place
has left on generations of Cubans, and of the many initiatives with
university students and the community.

Our purpose is the spreading of Marti ideas, a challenge we assume daily
with greater commitment and professionalism, said Hernandez while visiting
the place.

He said they have created links with various institutions and entities of
the State, Armed Forces and the Ministry of Interior, in particular,
education centers at all levels of education.

This is a place of great significance for this country, he said, and not
only by the passage of José Martí in the quarries. There objects that
belonged to him are kept here, and very important events of national
history are associated with it.

In 1952, after the coup led by Fulgencio Batista on March 10, university
students gathered there to symbolically bury the Constitution of 1940.

That piece of the old quarries of San Lazaro, witnessed the first march of
torches, led by the young Fidel Castro, who paid tribute to Cuba's
National Hero on the centenary of his birth.

The exhibition halls show objects like the odor pad Maria Garcia Granados
gave the Apostle, the chair and desk used by him in the home of Dr. Ramon
Luis Miranda, while in New York, and a revolver that belonged to him when
he was the Delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party.

But the Forge, explains Hernandez Duany, is also room to honor all those
who have sacrificed for the welfare of the nation and its children, as is
the case of the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters unjustly incarcerated in
the The United States.