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Jorge Garcia Vazques

Jorge Luís García Vázquez

Born 1959 in Havana, Cuba, the interpreter Jorge Luís García Vázques came to the GDR in the 1980s. He worked in Karl-Marx-Stadt (today named Chemnitz) as an interpreter for skilled workers from Cuba. The Cuban Secret Service tried to employ him as an informer with the specific task of spying on a Cuban musician during his tour through the GDR. However, wishing to leave the GDR, Vázques refused to do so.

Vázques helped the musician contact the US embassy. This phone conversation was bugged by the Stasi. Though the musician did eventually escape, Vázques was arrested by the Ministry of State Security of the GDR in March 1987 in Karl-Marx-Stadt. He was then brought to the central Stasi prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen and soon thereafter deported to Cuba.

After the fall of the wall, Vázques was legally able to leave Cuba. Today, he is living in Berlin as a freelance journalist and has worked as a tour guide at the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen memorial since September 2009.