French author Catherine Bardon has received praise for her first novel “Les déracinés”(The Uprooted), which is based on the real-life story of the Second World War as related to a Jewish couple that relocated to Sosua, Puerto Plata, after fleeing from Nazi persecution.
The writer told reporters that her work was “a gift” which opened the doors to her literary recognition. She heard the story of the struggles of Wilhelm and Almah first hand over thirty years ago, during her first visit to the Dominican Republic when she met them. She said: “Wilhelm told me that he arrived when he was 20 and that “I am German and Jewish, and this is my story.” That is how she came to learn how the couple fled from Nazism and arrived in the Dominican Republic, then ruled by the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina who maintained the peace through use of force.
It took many years for Bardon to marshal the time and effort needed to bring the novel to life. After the passing of Wilhelm, she said she knew the story had to be told.
Consulting documents in the Dominican National Archives as well as in Europe, she told the story about the Jewish migration to the Dominican Republic. She says that this is a part of history that is unknown or at least ignored in Europe and that is perhaps why she has garnered so many honors: the Draveil Prize, the Mennecy Prize for first novels and a place on the French book club, Loisirs’, reading list.
Now well versed in Dominican history and geography, she has also published a book of photographs of the country: Tierra mestizada.
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Diario Libre
28 January 2019
