The Jewish Trail of Tears The Evian Conference of ... - Haruth.com

“turning point” in Jewish refugee affairs. 50
During the initial meetings of the
Intergovernmental Committee for Political Refugees in London in August 1938 the figure
of one hundred thousand potential immigrants was raised by the Dominican Government
but a later Brookings Institute study in 1942 concluded that resettlement of such a large
number of refugees was not possible but by “proceeding gradually” a more realistic
number was 3,000-5,000. 51
A large contribution of Jewish money was required to ensure that the refugees
would not become public charges. The Dominican Republic Subsidiary Association or
Dorsa, a subsidiary of Agro-Joint established in the U.S., signed a contract with the
Trujillo Government in January 1940 in which one hundred refugees would be accepted.
The first immigrant community was established in the district of Sosúa in the northern
province of Puerto Plata on a former United Fruit Company banana plantation which
incorporated a 26,685 acre tract of land containing 4,950 acres of pasture, more than
twenty buildings with limited electricity, water and roads and a large reserve of virgin
forest. Its settler population (granted inalienable rights on January 30, 1940) numbered
around five hundred Jewish and non-Jewish settlers by 1942. The American Joint
Distribution Committee raised $1.423 million by the end of 1944. However, only limited
numbers of refugees, totaling 640, who had to agree to become agricultural workers, were
allowed into the country. Trujillo granted each Jew eighty acres of land, ten cows, one
50 Wischnitzer, “The Historical Background,” 47.
51 “Refugee Settlements in the Dominican Republic. A Survey Conducted under the Auspices of the
Brookings Institution”, Washington, 1942, 341, cited in Esco Foundation for Palestine, Inc., Palestine: A
Study of Jewish, Arab, and British Policies, vol. 1. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1947), 950.
Molina served as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in France and Belgium and was the
brother of Rafael Trujillo.
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