- Thread starter A.P.Colorado
- Start date
[history] Why the Dominican Republic was the only country to expand visas to Jews escaping Hitler
...Yes the Jews cleared the jungle, and they were given help from the DR government... the Jewish museum in Sosua puts the number of Jewish people immigrating at around 800, with far to few females..which caused a problem that is very similar to the one in Sosua today...........
The “why” is moot and unimportant at this point.
The fact that the DR did so at the time, it’s what has importance for those who lives were spare the horror of the extermination program.
The “why nots” is the more important question to be made to those other countries that turned their backs and henceforth provided legitimacy to the extermination program.
The Nazi party showed the world nobody from the big developed nations cared or wanted the very people the were seeking to eliminate.
This event gave Hitler the nod he wanted to carry out his purge all over Europe.
Case closed.
DR righteous nation...
The fact that the DR did so at the time, it’s what has importance for those who lives were spare the horror of the extermination program.
The “why nots” is the more important question to be made to those other countries that turned their backs and henceforth provided legitimacy to the extermination program.
The Nazi party showed the world nobody from the big developed nations cared or wanted the very people the were seeking to eliminate.
This event gave Hitler the nod he wanted to carry out his purge all over Europe.
Case closed.
DR righteous nation...
Canada for example had an anti-semitic PM Mackenzie King and anti-Semitic Minister of Immigration, and the whole province of Quebec had a long history of anti-semitism. Still do.
Those looking for a motive are the ones looking for an excuse to their blatant disregard to the human tragedy it brought from their negative to act.
Evian conference is now history and the words inked dried long ago on the pages of it.
They why would always be an excuse to the palpitating denialism.
Evian conference is now history and the words inked dried long ago on the pages of it.
They why would always be an excuse to the palpitating denialism.
Its like looking into the role of foreigners in shaping what otherwise was the natural course of things for the DR. But those influences changed everything.
For example (and the following is a tangent on this topic but describes very well how foreigners influenced the creation of the modern Samana and eastern part of the DR).
The oldest town in Samana is Samana city itself, founded in the 1700's by Spanish families from the Canary Islands. Most left for Puerto Rico though during the Haitian invasions of Toussaint Loverture in 1801 and Jean Jacques Dessalines in 1805. Then in the 1820's Haitian Jean Pierre Boyer settled African Americans all over the Dominican territory including the mostly deserted Samana Peninsula. One of the basic requirements was that they must descend from Africans. If everyone here would had been alive then, most wouldn't qualify.
Something similar happen at the end of the 1870's and from the 1880's onwards as the Americans were kicked out from Cuba due to the war there and found a virtually uninhabited plain in the eastern DR. It was so similar to where they had their sugar plantations in Cuba using Jamaican and Haitian labor. They decided to create sugar plantations in the DR, at first attempted to attract Dominicans to their fields but Dominicans needed higher wages to leave their farms and work for someone else. Then Puerto Ricans were imported taking into account the Dominican consideration. Eventually, the English speaking people from the English Caribbean (just like most of the owners of the sugar plantations who were Americans) decided to import blacks from those islands. They also had a heavy problem with unemployment, so people were willing to arrive to the DR with work waiting fir them. These would be known as the Cocolos and their "father" in the DR was William Bass from Massachussetts, United States.
Forever the population parttern was changed in the east. From the Spanish time all the way to the 1880's the eastern population (which was small) was concentrated inland around El Seibo and Higüey, and was predominantly light skin abd white like in the Cibao. In addition, was a migration there from the Cibao in 1805 after the widespread destruction by Jean Jacques Dessalines during his "Campain of the East." To get away from the destruction in Bonao, La Vega, Santiago, San Francisco, Sabaneta, Monte Christi, Dajabon, etc they settled around El Seibo and Higüey adding to those towns and surrounding areas. Many of those towns had augmented there population when Spain encouraged the migration of Spaniards from the Canary Islands in the 1700's. For example, there is a town outside of Higüey calle Cerro Gordo de los Isleños. "Isleños" is one of the names the Spaniards from the Canary Islands were known. The population centers shifted to the Caribbean coast due to the sugar industry of the Americans and their usage of labor imported from the English Caribbean, San Pedro in particular became the center of the population in the region.
Many towns in the east have a sugar plantation/mills origin. For example, Boca Chica was a sparsely populated area since the Spanish who called the area Magdalena. A sugar mill was created there I think in the 1920's (the only thing left is the chimney in the Andrés area) nsmed Boca Chica and that was basically the beginning of Boca Chica as a settled area. Later, the Vicini developed the area that today is the central part of Boca Chica where the central church, the central park, the Duarte strip by the coast, the streets are straight and meet in 90 degree angles, etc is located. The same happen in Consuelo in San Pedro de Macoris province. There was nothing there until a sugar mill was created named Consuelo. From the mill the resulting town (which grew with every generation) got its name.
In the 1920's a shift took place as the Cocolos went on strike demanding higher wages and better working conditions. The Americans, who were most of the sugar plantation owners, decided to screw them and instead began importing Haitians to replace them in the sugar plantations.
Then Trujillo would buy the American owned plantations (a process calked Dominicanization since for the first time ever the sugar industry went from being owned mostly by foreigners to Dominicans, mainly Trujillo himself) except Central Romana which was already in the plans of take over when he was killed in 1961. With him most of the sugar industry was in Dominican hands by basically buying out the Americans who created the sugar industry in the first place always using non-Dominican labor. Then, Trujillo was killed in 1961 and all the companies and properties owned by the Trujillo family were confiscated by the government and a new entity called CORDE was created to group and administer them and this included most of the sugar plantations at the time. Those plantations each function as an independent corporation during the Trujillo years and were very efficient and profitable during his rule. Under the government post-Trujillo all types of corruption and clientelism saddled previously profitable companies and problems began to arise. For example, Dominicana de Aviación was one of the first airlines in Latin America and founded by Trujillo. It worked well during his rule, but then the company faced problems and debt and eventually was shut down. The same with other companies including many of the sugar plantations. Other companies remained very profitable, like Banreservas which was founded by Trujillo and is still not just the largest Dominican bank, but the most profitable company owned by the government.
Anyway, many of the American families that became very wealthy in the Dominican sugar industry are still wealthy and many quite powerful. Most live in the NYC area and surrounding suburbs, particularly in northern New Jersey, Westchester County NY, the gold coast of Connecticut, and on Long Island. It doesn't take much to meet many of these people in that area, though they tend to be descendants rather than the actual fortune creators from the Dominican Republic.
hard copy/paperback. mine is a paperback. The cheapest hardcopy I found was $69.
NALS, I believe the houses built for management are still there in Andres as well. I seem to remember there were at least 5-6 of them on Calle San Andres.
Very well constructed with large yards full of trees. I tried to buy one but could never make contact with anyone in the know.