island cassie

In 1938 the Dominican Republic was suffering under the rule of the dictator Trujillo. He had killed thousands of Haitians, and in order to atone for his human rights abuses, Rooseveldt made him agree to take in a number of German Jews, and he was paid US$50 a head. They were given the land recently vacated by the United Fruit Company in the Sosua area.

Recently an elderly Dutchman whose father had sheltered 4 Jewish families for 4 years during the second world war, wanted to improve the road leading up into the hills where a quite large number of people live, and which had been in a bad condition for a long time. He wanted to straighten the road and eliminate a very dangerous s-bend, and using the expertise he had from working for the UN for many years - he approached the landowner.

The result was that the landowner - one of the original Jewish refugees - allowed him to reroute the road across his land and donated the area within the loop to be made into a park.

And today (9th November - Kristalnacht) - sorry for the spelling - we opened the Herman Strauss Community Park with Dominicans, Haitians, Dutch, Germans, English, Belgians, Americans and Canadians in attendance. The glass plaque said on one side - Kristalnacht and the date - and on the other side - Freedom brought us here.

I had tears in my eyes! and I had to share!