Our Times / Orange County Communities

Polita Grau, 84, the former first lady of Cuba who later was a driving force in the “Peter Pan” movement, which encouraged parents to send their children out of Communist Cuba to live with relatives in Miami. Grau’s unmarried uncle, Ramon Grau San Martin, conferred upon her the ceremonial title of first lady during his first term as president, from 1933 to 1934. Grau, born in Havana, became involved in radical campus movements during her college days to undermine the regime of Gen. Gerardo Marchado. She was a supporter of Cuba’s 1959 revolution, but turned against it after Fidel Castro started nationalizing industries. The Peter Pan movement, in which Grau and her brother Ramon played key roles as organizers, sent 14,000 children to new lives in the United States. The Grau siblings were arrested by Castro in 1965 and charged with being CIA agents and forming an international espionage ring in Cuba. Polita Grau spent 14 years in prison, until Castro authorized a major release of political prisoners in 1978 as part of a dialogue with Miami exiles encouraged by President Jimmy Carter. Her brother, however, was not released until 1986. He died two years later. “She was a very gentle lady with a very strong character,” said Msgr. Bryan Walsh, a Roman Catholic priest who organized the Miami end of the Peter Pan movement. “The Graus could have left Cuba very early, but they stayed on. She was very committed in that sense. She knew the risks she was taking,” he added. On Wednesday of heart disease at a nursing home in Miami.