Jewish Refugees in the Dominican Republic

In this lecture, Marion Kaplan willl describe several Latin American refugee destinations while focusing on Sosua, in the Dominican Republic. Whereas most countries around the globe restricted Jewish immigrants, why did the Dominican government extend a welcoming hand, and who arrived in Sosua? The refugees’ journeys had started off desperately, escaping an expanding Nazi Germany and its concentration camps. After long treks, they found themselves on a sunny island, miles from the nearest town. There these urban dwellers became farmers – or tried to become farmers – with the crucial help of their Dominican neighbors. This is the story of how the Dominican Republic saved Jewish lives.

This event is the final installment of Many Promised Lands, LBI's 2026 lecture series covering migration of German-Jewish refugees after 1946.

This programming is made possible through the generous support of the Levi-Thalheimer Fund for Research and Public History.

Marion Kaplan is the Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History Emerita at New York University. She is a three-time winner of the National Jewish Book Award for her books: The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family and Identity in Imperial Germany (New York, Oxford University Press, 1991); Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (Oxford University Press, 1998); and Gender and Jewish History, co-edited with Deborah Dash Moore (Indiana, 2011). Her most recent book is Hitler's Jewish Refugees: Hope and Anxiety in Portugal (Yale, 2020). All of her monographs have been translated into German.