By now I assume that anyone that has studied Latin American history, especially in the USA, has heard of Trujillo. What many don’t know are the facts behind the man and the rationale for his actions, as these facts have been suppressed or manipulated by strong political, academia and anti-Trujillo forces for five decades in a way that makes Trujillo appear as a monstrous fascist, xenophobe dictator. However, this one letter debunks the false narrative that Trujillo was another Hitler or a Fascist as in this speech that he gave in 1956 honoring him for his humanitarian act of allowing Jews to find refuge in Sosua, he makes it clear that he despises racial discrimination and xenophobia. Furthermore, he mentions an apparent conspiracy created against the Dominican Republic by a future State Department official which according to the speech attempted to persuade Trujillo to take back his offer of allowing Jews to settle and find refuge from NAZI persecution in Sosua.
The date of this speech and his mentioning of a conspiracy headed by USA officials are of special interest to us researchers as it happens to concur with the year that Galindez disappeared and an attempt to place the blame on Trujillo by intelligence agencies was initiated. As one can see in this posting where we briefly discuss the Galindez case, a CIA agent states that his investigation into the Galindez case led him directly to the doors of the CIA and their cover up. It was after 1956 that Trujillo’s relationship with the USA started to deteriorate. This led to multiple events that would ultimately lead to Trujillo’s character assassination via multiple propaganda channels and an eventual CIA covert mission that would assassinate Trujillo on May 30, 1961 with the collaboration of Dominican dissidents.
Nonetheless the letter states:
“Translation of Generalissimo Trujillo’s Speech at the Banquet given in his Honor by DORSA on January 29th 1956:
Mr. President and members of Dorsa:
I am deeply moved by the significant homage which this leading Institution of the Jewish Colony of Sosua has deigned to offer me, which includes the present banquet, the handing over of a scroll in recognition of my humanitarian work in favor of the Jewish community and the monument which will be unveiled tomorrow on the grounds of the Pair of Peace and Brotherhood of the free World.
I consider this monument in my honor, made to the Dominican Republic in my person, to be destined to commemorate in bronze and marble the hospitality which the Jewish community received in this country since 1938, when wild storms of inhuman prejudices drove millions of its components from their Teutonic hearths out of the German frontiers, In the name of an evil called ethnic superiority, assisted by a force void of spirit. Driven from its land by the discriminatory ferocity of Nazism, this human wave, without a beach spread on its path, saw growing hour by hour the tragedy of exile without hope of rebuilding its destroyed homes. There can be nothing more tragic than the estrangement of the soil where one lives, when all other lands are closed as saving havens to the wandering. It was a tragic situation of the gravest consequences that no place on earth had been found willing to accept the victims of xenophobia. It was then that President Roosevelt called the Conference of Evian and it was at this historic assembly of 32 countries when I, in the name of the Dominican Republic, of which I was then President, broke the difficultly which seemed to leave this acute problem without solution with the word which within the policy of open arms offered land and livelihood to one-hundred thousand Jews.
With this gesture of love to the cause of justice, worthy of the sympathy and the respect of the whole world, coincided the issue of a book full of errors and prejudices, published under the auspices of the Brooking Institute, where in tendentious form it was tried to deny any possibilities of the Republic to absorb the ten thousands of Jews to which we had generously offered our soil. Neither can I forget how one member of the group of official personalities of the United States which visited this land in the beginning of 1941 under the patronage of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in the preliminary negotiations of the organization of Dorsa, suggested to me that I should desist from my offer made In Evian and thus should withdraw from the persecuted of Jewish race the only hope which they had at this moment to start a new life under the protection of the Dominican flag.
If the limitless persecution of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany was wicked, no less repulsive was this conspiracy against a country which had the courage to be the first before all other nations of the world by offering its territory for settlement of the victims of racial discrimination. This maneuver, attributed to a certain functionary who by chance happened to be elevated to high office In the State Department, could have destroyed the most beautiful experiment made; up to now in order to restore the injustices of anti-Semitism and to make true the mission of America as the land reserved by God as a refuge for all the persecuted races and all the oppressed liberties. The triumph of the colony established in Sosua has uncovered the falsehood of the common species with which they wanted to obstruct this crusade, in favor of the right inherent to every human being whatever its religion or race, to live under the protection of laws and under the shelter of God who made all men equal and who marked them all with the seal of His divine justice. To us who then outstretched our hand to the Jewish nation there remains the satisfaction to have fulfilled our duty to mankind and to have unveiled, as so many times, those who wielded the weapon of lies against truth which opens its way against all conspiracies and all obstacles; in the new Dominican Republic.
Mr. President of Dorsa; the General Hector B. Trujillo Molina, President of the Republic and I; are deeply grateful for the honor you have offered us by dedicating us this banquet. Make it known to your illustrious colleague, Dr. Rosenberg, who is certainly here in admirable spiritual presence, because his, like yours is the cause of love to humanity to which we dedicate our love and unfailing devotion.”
