This trip is a wonderful experience.” However, Richard Symansky and Nancy Burley have pointed out that the property at Sosúa was not first on a list of areas recommended for colonization, in spite of Rosen and Rosenberg’s glowing reports. Symanski and Burley continue to list the physical deficiencies of the Sosúa property, citing its “low rainfall, shallow soils and rocky terrain, containing sizeable areas of swamp, and it was estimated to have no more than 500 hectares of plowable land”. Since each hectare is equal to approximately 2.47 acres, this represented just a fraction of the property’s estimated 26,000 acres, or 1,235 acres of ‘plowable’ land on which to farm.The land was parceled out to the settlers in two hectare plots to be used for the maintenance of the settler family, and thirty hectare cooperative plots to be worked by the group to which the family or group belonged. There were stands of forest that included hardwoods which were ideal for building purposes, and among other things, the making of charcoal. Yet Sosúa’s beauty was its real ‘drawing power,’ regardless of its perceived deficiencies. Sosúa had its downsides but beauty was not among them. Indeed, Bruman found Sosúa “beautiful… [and] whose beach is a countrywide attraction and serves both settlers and visitors as a welcome source of recreation.”The existing infrastructure at Sosúa included buildings that could be put to immediate use as temporary housing by the first settlers. It had electricity, phone lines and a 50,000 gallon reservoir. In addition the parcel had ‘miles of fencing’ and “sufficient accommodations to temporarily house at least 150 people.”In a diary compiled during his first stay at Sosúa, Rosenberg questioned Rosen regarding the existing infrastructure: Dr. Rosen, where we are now [Sosúa] is there running water? Yes. In all the houses. Is there electric light? Yes. Telephone connections? Yes. This meant that the first settlers to arrive would have their basic living necessities in place. Rosenberg, planning ahead to when the first refugees arrived, thought that the building would serve the settlement as a “community center and to some extent would furnish living quarters at the beginning.”Once the first pioneers were safely ensconced, new construction could begin. There were houses, barns, corrals and roads to build,flower pots for sale as well as forest to be cleared in preparation of the land for planting. Then again, the Sosúa tract was not the best of possible sites for agricultural settlement in the Dominican Republic.

During the inspection of other properties around the island Rosen and his team had the opportunity to visit other established farms. Yet Rosen was, somehow, stuck on the idea of Sosúa as the ideal place to start the ‘experiment,’ and listed for Rosenberg the benefits of Sosúa. To start with Rosen acknowledged that “the soil here is not as good as in Catarey or Fundación,” two sites that Rosen and Rosenberg had inspected during their trip around the island. However, Rosen remained steadfast in his estimation of the superiority of Sosúa for settlement. This assembly of urban trades made up what Jonathan Dekel-Chen and Israel Bartal refer to as the New Jew, those that would be connected to the land as agriculturalists in a new world order occasioned by the disaster of World War II.The difficulty in finding qualified people with the proper background in farming is best illustrated by the story of Solomon Trone. Trone was sent to Europe as one of several recruitment agents for DORSA and soon realized that he would have to tailor the requirements set by DORSA and El Generalíssimo for would-be settlers. The minimum experience that the Jewish refugees needed to demonstrate was, now, only a familiarity with hard labor and, if possible some agricultural experience. Trujillo believed that the Jews could raise Dominican living standards by the introduction of new techniques in regards to agriculture and commerce, hence his easing of the strict requirement that all prospective settlers have at least some agricultural experience. In Europe Trone noted that recruiting the right Jews ‘required extreme effort’ so the easing of certain requirements would benefit both DORSA and Trujillo.Trone was tasked with the impossible. He could not find the type of people that Rosen wanted as the first Sosúa settlers. Indeed, Rosen wanted “…groups of agricultural trainees from Germany and Austria who have known each other and have learned to work together” This represented an estimated two-percent of the total Jewish population of both countries. The prospective pioneers had an application to fill out as well, with the questions geared toward past agricultural experience, or ‘prior manual training’ in the words of Wells.

The innocuous sounding ‘Application for Admission to the Dominican Republic’ had “straightforward clauses [that also] laid out the philanthropy’s and the government’s expectations.”Trone was also instructed by Rosen to be on the lookout for the ‘problem cases’ that other refugee committees attempted to foist upon DORSA. Trone had visited other countries ‘of transit’ in Europe where he toured refugee camps in search of qualified candidates that were a fit for Rosen’s, hence DORSA’s, model of the ideal pioneer. On his visit to Switzerland, Trone found Jews working on government sponsored tasks such as forest clearing and road building. These Jews were precisely the type of pioneer that DORSA had wanted to begin the settlement at Sosúa, people with a sense of community and a mission to accomplish. However, Rosen and DORSA would have to make do with whatever ‘material’ was available, regardless of qualifications that were real or imagined. Trone’s difficulties meeting these criteria were magnified when he crossed into Italy and visited a refugee camp where the conditions were “much worse than we could have imagined in our wildest dreams.” Trone referred to the desperate plight of these refugees as “a tragedy which can hardly be imagined. Everyone wants to get away-where-it doesn’t matter.”Some of these desperate refugees, the lucky ones, would eventually call Sosúa home. Once the pioneers had been chosen to be settlers at Sosúa, the next obstacle had to be overcome: getting there. This was a logistical problem that involved extensive paperwork. Exit and entrance visas had to be obtained from the governments involved. Those who were not fortunate enough to have made it to the transit countries; France, England and Switzerland among others, would languish in dreadful anticipation of being sent back to a violent death at the hands of the Nazis in Germany. Indeed, many refugees were returned, against their will, to Nazi concentration camps where their fate was sealed. Both Kaplan and Wells have written extensively regarding the logistical issues involved in getting Jewish refugees to Sosúa.Many refugees chose to cross illegally-without visas or proper documentation, into the so-called countries of transit, or those which were not yet occupied by Nazis. Some even resorted to the bribery of corrupt border officials and port authorities to obtain the necessary visas needed to enter or pass through a country of transit. Then again, the refugees were required to procure exit visas from their countries of residence and transit visas from the countries through which they would travel. Kaplan relates the narrative of one of the refugees, Ernst Hofeller, who described in detail the ‘paper chase’ involved in obtaining the necessary documents to travel to the Dominican Republic. One had to proceed ‘backwards,’ at first by getting the Dominican visa first and foremost. Then one had to get both entrance and transit visas issued by the United States, followed by those issued by Portuguese authorities.

Once these travel documents were in order, one obtained the Spanish transit visa and, finally, the exit visa from French authorities. One exited France, travelled through Spain, crossed the international border into Portugal, secured entrance visas and passage on transport ships to the U.S., then obtained exit visas from there to the Dominican Republic. Refugees faced other difficulties as well, including the closing off of escape routes and the purported lack of adequate shipping to be used as transport.Attacks on merchant shipping in the Atlantic by German U boats,tower garden effectively reduced the amount of shipping available to transport the refugees from European ports to Latin America. Along the uncertain journey to safety one had to be clothed, housed and fed, which proved to be most difficult for those whose assets and currency had been confiscated when they departed their ancestral homeland. The Reich Flight Tax was particularly troublesome, as it provided the Nazis with the legal means to seize property and currency. The Tax became official German policy in 1931, was extended to Austria in 1938, and put a stop to capital flight, as well as dissuading wealthy Jews from leaving both countries. Sosúa was known to have spotty, therefore highly variable, rainfall and was subject to frequent and punishing droughts. Indeed Symanski and Burley noted that the region had low rainfall, something that should have ruled out Sosúa as a choice for an agricultural settlement.The geographer John P. Augelli has also pointed out the region’s “inaccessibility and low rainfall” as a reason for the Dominican Government’s increased emphasis “on both irrigation and transportation” to insure a certain degree of success for the fledgling agricultural settlements within her borders.This was problematic as hygienic sources of water were crucial to the success of the endeavor. The tropical swampland also represented a health hazard as mosquito and water-borne illnesses were rampant. Indeed, “malaria was ubiquitous throughout the country; its incidence was higher along the coast.”Sosúa’s location in the Caribbean tropics put the European settlers at high risk for diseases not encountered in Europe. The settlers lacked built-in immunities to the new, exotic diseases of the tropical regions. Indeed, the historian Simone Gigliotti, quoting a 1942 report titled ‘Refugee Settlement in the Dominican Republic’ compiled by members of the widely known Washington D.C. based think tank The Brookings Institute, claimed that by the end of the colony’s first year there were 40 cases of malaria.This represents a high percentage of pioneers infected by the potentially fatal tropical disease. Wells quotes another source, Andrew Balfour, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who claimed that “the hot and humid tropics are not suited for white colonization and never will be” regardless of just how adaptable white people may be.

The advancements in the field of tropical medicine may have produced new medications such as quinine, used to immunize against, and prevent the spread of malaria, yet “whites in the tropics [are like] a wilting plant that has been carried beyond its natural habitat.”65 Even with the development of medicine and treatment regimens, tropical diseases such as yellow fever, hookworm, malaria and dysentery remained a real and constant threat to the Jewish settlers. Kaplan notes that “Visiting experts found the health conditions at the settlement ‘good’ with only 40 cases of malaria reported up to July 1941 and no dysentery or typhoid fever.” The health clinic at Sosúa was then treating upwards of 40 people daily for diseases such as malaria and gastro-intestinal ailments. Then again, “Malaria appeared to be the worst health issue, although venereal disease and tuberculosis would also present challenges.”66 The Illustrious Generalíssimo Trujillo wanted to rid the country of the dreaded malaria and other tropical diseases, and began aggressive eradication campaigns to achieve this end. Then again, Trujillo’s vision for the future of the island included banishing malaria from its shores, thereby enhancing his ‘humanitarian image’ in the public’s eye.Bruman, quoting a report dated 1950 by Alfred Rosenzweig, who was the first settler to run the colony, states that the hospital at Sosúa reported only “two new cases of malaria in 1950 against 4 in 1949.” This illustrates that Trujillo’s war on malaria had positive results for the settlers at Sosúa. Again, “at its inception in 1940, Sosúa was malaria infested, but the disease has been [by 1950] almost eliminated.” The overall physical health of the Sosuaners was “excellent, especially that of the children.”68 There was also the assertion that people who lived in the tropical regions of the world were susceptible to ‘tropical inertia,’ which acted as a handicap and “diminished the capacity to fight off disease.” Tropical inertia was believed to weaken individual resolve thereby stripping an individual of ‘moral vigor.’ Other disorders that affected those living in the tropical regions, especially whites, were “nervous system disorders, such as insomnia, irritability, chronic fatigue, and nervous exhaustion.”