Dominikanische Republik
Dominikanische Republik
Nein, der war kein Humanist, der uns helfen wollte. Aber hatten wir eine Wahl? Hitler, der deutsche Rassist, hat uns verfolgt, letztlich wollte er uns umbringen. Trujillo, der dominikanische Rassist, hat unser Leben gerettet. Die rund 700 Juden, die nach Sosúa kamen, waren in die unangenehme Lage geraten, dem Diktator dankbar sein zu müssen.
[No, it was no humanist who wanted to help us. But did we have a choice? Hitler, the German racist persecuted us, and finally he wanted to kill us. Trujillo, the Dominican racist, saved our lives. The approximately 700 Jews who came to Sosúa were in the uncomfortable position of having to be thankful to the dictator. (ed. trans.)]
Luis Hess, deutscher Exilant in der Dominikanischen Republik
In July 1938, the Évian Conference was held at the behest of American president Roosevelt to devise solutions for the ever-increasing flow of refugees after the annexation of the Sudetenland and Austria. Among conference attendees, only the Dominican Republic declared itself willing to accept up to 100,000 Jews. On the one hand, the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo wanted to improve his international reputation after having ordered the massacre of Haitians living in the country in October 1937. On the other hand, Trujillo had racist motives for facilitating the immigration of European Jews: he hoped that the Dominican populace would “mix” with the light-skinned people.
Following Trujillo's offer, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee founded the Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA), which concluded a contract with the Dominican government in January 1940 and bought the land of a former banana plantation for the sum of 100,000 dollars. This was to be the location of a settlement for Jewish émigrés from Europe. From 1940 onwards, a total of between 1,000 and 2,000 refugees from Germany and Austria came to the country.
However, the refugees were European urbanites who were supposed to become farmers on a Caribbean island. The European émigrés had to adjust to a foreign culture and environment while learning to farm – conditions which proved extremely difficult for many. Artistic endeavours remained an exception.
Although the settlement project was a success and the name Sosúa remains synonymous with high-quality dairy and sausage products to this day, many of the settlers left Sosúa after the Second World War, primarily to the US.
In a nod to her exile in the Dominican Republic, the writer Hilde Palm, who began writing while in exile, used “Domin” as a pseudonym.
Further reading:
Heimat und Exil. Emigration der deutschen Juden nach 1933. Hg. Von der Stiftung Jüdisches Museum Berlin. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag 2006
Kaplan, Marion: Zuflucht in der Karibik. Die jüdische Flüchtlingssiedlung in der Dominikanischen Republik 1940 – 1945. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag 2010