Fleeing Cuba | Bellevue man recalls parents’ narrow escape in 1962

Published 6:08 pm Wednesday, January 14, 2015

By Dan Aznoff

Special to the Reporter

President Obama’s decision to restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba hit close to home for a Bellevue man whose parents made a clandestine escape from the island nation more than 50 years ago.

Gabe Sterns remembers clearly how it took dramatic action from both U.S. senators from Washington state and the FBI to help get his parents to Florida after Fidel Castro came to power in Havana. The former Boeing engineer said he turned to the federal government for help after the resident visas issued to his parents had been revoked.

“Pan Am was still providing commercial flights to Cuba at the time,” said Sterns. “But my parents were having trouble getting into the United States after the communist government seized their property and nationalized the pharmaceutical factory my father established after the war.”

Sterns had only been with Boeing a short time when he made the impassioned plea for help in 1962. Sens. Warren G. Magnuson and Henry “Scoop” Jackson responded to his request, clearing the way for his parents to fly to Miami.

But the trouble did not stop there. Wilhelm and Margarite Stern asked their son to send $10,000 (the equivalent of more than $70,000 in today’s dollars) to them in Boca Rattan in hope the communist government would release personal items and pieces from the art collection they brought across the Atlantic after their escape from Europe.

“This was way before the Internet scams for money from relatives you read about today,” Sterns said with a sly smile. “They were dealing with a so-called ‘broker’ who said he had inside connections with the Castro government. I knew immediately it was a hoax and called in the FBI to intervene. There was no way they could get all those personal items out of Cuba.”

Sterns moved his parents across the country and into his house on Mercer Island. They eventually used the $10,000 for his father to establish his medical practice in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of New York. Wilhelm used an exception to the law that allowed doctors from Europe who had earned their degrees before 1919 to be licensed in the United States.

Gabe added an ‘s’ to his last name several years after he moved tom the United States so it would not sound “quite as Jewish.”

The surreptitious exit from Cuba was the third time the elder Stern escaped from the evil intentions of an infamous government that persecuted its citizens because of their religion. Wilhelm had been a prominent physician and the owner of a factory that produced pharmaceuticals in his native home of Transylvania when his family avoided being shipped off to a concentration camp by fleeing Budapest.

Wilhelm returned to what was then known as Romania after the war, only to pack up again when the oppressive policies of the Soviet Union threatened his family and his business. He moved to Cuba in 1947 at the invitation of his Uncle Zollie, who had established a new home on the Caribbean island eight years earlier.

Gabe was only 13 years old when his family landed on in on the shores of the island 90 miles south of the United States. He attended the high school at the academy known as Candler Collage in Havana and obtained a resident visa that allowed him to continue his studies at Auburn University in Alabama. He graduated in 1958 and returned Cuba to do research in the sugar fields for the B.F. Goodrich Corporation. The younger Stern moved to Miami to work with two corporate airplane manufacturers before accepting his position with Boeing in 1961.

According to Sterns, his parent’s visas were revoked because they had used their permits previously to attend their son’s college graduation ceremonies.

The New Year also brought back other memories of his time on Cuba. Gabe remembers being on his way to a party on New Year’s Eve with his fiancé when he saw a private plane make an impromptu take-off from the international airport in Havana. It was not until several days into the New Year that he realized the small plane he saw carried ousted Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, who had just been overthrown by Fidel Castro, leader of the rebel group known as Los Barbudos (The Bearded Ones).

Not all of Sterns’ memories were pleasant ones.

The renewed relations with Cuba also brought up visions of a dear friend he had had as a teenager. Gaston Perez eventually found his way to South Florida and was part of the rag-tag force that was decimated when they tried to invade Cuba in the U.S. backed insurgent landing at the Bay of Pigs. Gabe said his friend was at the controls of a slow and vulnerable B-26 when he was shot down by Cuban pilots flying Russian trainer jets.

“His death made me sad and angry,” he recalled. “The U.S. had an aircraft carrier in the area, but (President) Kennedy did not provide any air support. The bombers had no tail gunners and were flying with full tanks of fuel.

“They were sitting ducks.”

Sterns now lives in the Somerset neighborhood of Bellevue with his Brazilian-born wife, Marta. His house on the hill can be identified by the Seahawk’s 12th Man flag that hangs from the railing of his deck.

Dan Aznoff is a freelance writer who lives in Bellevue who specializes in capturing the memories of past generations. His website is www.DAJournalist.com. He can be reached at da@dajiurnalist.com.

Top: The Stern home in Havana. The family living quarters were on the upper floors and the pharmaceutical laboratory operated by Wilhelm Stern was located below.

Above: Wilhelm (left with dog) and Margarite Stern in a rural area of Cuba with a family friend. The European immigrants were forced to abandon Cuba when Fidel Castro came to power and nationalized the pharmaceutical laboratory Wilhelm had established on the island in 1947.

Courtesy photos