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

Abstract

This paper deals with the motives of Rafael Trujillo Molino in offering European Jews sanctuary at Sosua, 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 Sosuan 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 Sosua 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.