In March 1938, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt convened a
32-nation conference at Evian-les-Bains, France, to discuss the resettlement of German and Austrian Jewish refugees to
other lands. At that time, the Nazi regime was still agreeing to let Jews
emigrate if they transferred their assets to the German government. The assembled nations endorsed the idea of resettlement but
agreed that no nation would "be expected or asked to receive a greater
number of emigrants than is permitted by existing legislation." Given the
immigration restrictionist and anti-Semitic moods of the Depression era, this
meant that, in effect, no nation – even the United States – was expected
to take more than a few thousand refugees.
Only the Dominican
Republic, led by dictator Rafael Trujillo, expressed a willingness to accept a significant number - between
50,000 and 100,000 Jews - an offer to which the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee jumped. Trujillo's generosity probably stemmed mainly from his eagerness to have the Western nations overlook his brutal massacre of 25,000 Haitians in 1937 and his desire to "whiten" the people of his country, believing that the young European men would marry Dominican women and produce light-skinned offspring
The Dominican government
welcomed the Jews on the condition that they become agricultural workers
rather than "commission agents." The Joint Distribution Committee created a
special organization, the Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA)
and funded it to purchase 26,000 acres in the Dominican town of Sosua, which
had previously been developed as a banana plantation but then abandoned by the
United Fruit Company.
On January 30, 1940. DORSA officials signed a contract with
the Trujillo regime. Historian Nicholas Ross, writing in the journal of the
American Jewish Historical Society, quotes the contract:
The Republic ... hereby guarantees to the settlers
and their descendants full opportunity to continue their lives and
occupations free from molestation, discrimination or persecution, with
full freedom of religion ... civil, legal and economic rights, as well
as other rights inherent to human beings.
The refugees were settled in the tiny seacoast town of Sosua, then just jungle land, that Trujillo had established with funding provided by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Upon arrival, every new Jewish settler was given 80 acres of land, 10 cows, a mule and a horse.
Despite the promise of escaping Europe, only 50 Jews were able to make their way to the Dominican Republic in the first year of the program. Submarine warfare in the Atlantic and the need to use Allied ships
for troops and supplies made it incredibly hard to relocate refugees.
James N. Rosenberg, head of DORSA, refused to let the
experiment die:
"Half the world lives now
under the shadow of war, persecution, horror and death. ... Now an open door
of hope beckons. ... We must carry this endeavor to accomplishment. … We
dare not falter."
DORSA imported experts from kibbutzim in Palestine to teach
the settlers communal agriculture. They helped design and build a communal
meat processing plant and butter and cheese factory and recommended raising
lemongrass for its oil, which is commercially used in perfume. A trickle of
refugee settlers continued to the town despite the fact that the American
entry into the war made it even harder to cross the Atlantic.
In October 1941,
the Nazis cut off Jewish emigration from the territories they occupied in
Europe. Sosua’s Jewish population peaked at about 500. By this point, DORSA
had invested about $1 million in the project.
By 1944, Sosua’s fortunes turned, DORSA
abandoned communal agriculture and gave the settlers private plots. The
colonists focused on raising cattle and butter and cheese production.
Eventually, they learned to prosper. While some left for the U.S. or Israel,
others stayed
Today, about 25 Jewish families remain in Sosua. Their
dairy business supplies most of the butter and cheese consumed in the
Dominican Republic. Next to the town’s synagogue is a museum. The final
caption on its exhibit reads: "Sosua, a community born of pain and
nurtured in love must, in the final analysis, represent the ultimate triumph
of life."