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Why SosÚa? Trujillo’s motives for Jewish refugee settlement in the Dominican Republic

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Abstract

This paper deals with the motives of Rafael Trujillo Molino in offering European Jews sanctuary at Sosúa, a town located on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. Background information is furnished on the Evian Conference of 1938 and the deteriorating situation of European Jewry leading to the Holocaust. Trujillo was a complex personality with many motivations for his Sosúan proposal. Among them include: racial and demographic considerations, economic development, publicity, a desire to improve U.S.-Dominican relations, domestic political concerns, personal reasons, and personal financial aggrandizement. Thus Trujillo masked baser and more pragmatic considerations with his professed humanitarianism. The paper concludes with the placement of Sosúa within the larger context of United States foreign policy concerns and resettlement and rescue attempts. A brief discussion and history of the community itself is also included. Trujillo’s motives reveal, in turn, a great deal about his personality.

While on the subject of motivations, my major motivation in writing this paper stemmed from a desire to study the Holocaust within a specific Latin American framework. In oilier words, what was Latin America’s role during this trying period in Jewish history? This paper admirably provided such an opportunity.

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  1. The University of Elinois, USA

    Allan Metz

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  1. Allan Metz
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Metz, A. Why SosÚa? Trujillo’s motives for Jewish refugee settlement in the Dominican Republic. Cont Jewry 11, 3–28 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02965538

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