La República Dominicana y los refugiados judíos en Sosúa. Claroscuro de una historia exitosa

Abstract

Following the coming to power of Hitler, in 1933, the Nuremberg Laws, in 1935, and the consequent annexing of Austria to Germany, in 1938, the situation of the Jewish community, in Europe, becomes desperate. This determined a wave of migration, towards the whole world. The Congress of Evian, convened by the President of the United States of America, Franklin D. Roosevelt, gathered delegations from 32 countries, in the purpose of identifying a solution for these Jewish refugees and a country willing to shelter them. The Congress of Evian concluded, in the general indifference of its representatives, with the only aid offer, by the Dominican Republic. This work provides an historical review of the events, before and after the Congress of Evian, as well as, an anthropological reflection on the older refugees’ and their descendants’ perspective, concerning their agricultural settlement in Sosúa, in the North of the Dominican Republic. This study also analyses the role of the dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, in the negotiations, by the Dominican Republic, with the United States of America and the DORSA, which will finance the hosting plan for the Jewish refugees. This constitutes the backdrop of this scarcely known history, also light and shadows of the multiple reasons for the Dominican regime making this deal, although, this cannot be separated from the final paramount outcome of having saved lives.