Tropical Zion
Sosúa Bay, c. 1940
More than a thousand Jewish refugees fled Nazi Germany during World War II and settled in the Dominican Republic, then ruled by one of Latin America’s most repressive dictators, General Rafael Trujillo. Tropical Zion tells the unique story of that dictator, FDR and his chief aides, the fortunate émigrés and their philanthropic sponsors, who combined to found an unconventional, agricultural colony called Sosúa in the Caribbean. Below are some images that illustrate how these refugees from Berlin and Vienna—many of whom had never set foot on a farm—became yeoman pioneers and within a few years, opened a highly successful employee-owned dairy cooperative at Sosúa
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Tropical Zion: General Trujillo, FDR and the Jews of Sosúa will be published by Duke University Press in the Spring of 2009.
Photo credits: Historical black and white photographs courtesy of American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives. Modern color photographs by the author.