"It is important to tell the little-known history of the town now, because soon there will be nothing left of it (…) We are fighting here for the last scrap of memory", the former mayor of Sosúa stated referring to the town's Jewish exile history. Today, Sosúa is a popular holiday destination in the Dominican Republic. Between 1939 and 1945, numerous Jews found refuge from the Nazi regime in the small town in the North of the Dominican Republic. While almost all countries closed their borders to Jewish refugees, an agricultural settlement project based on the model of Jewish kibbutzim was established in the dictatorially ruled island state. Although many Jewish families left Sosúa for the USA and Europe in the following decades after the end of the war, the city is still connected with its special history. For the small town, however, the question arises of how the Jewish heritage can be protected, preserved and sensitively revalued. Since most of the buildings of the settlement project no longer exist and some monuments as well as the local Jewish museum are in decay, there is a real danger that the decades of history of the Jewish community, which played a decisive role in the development of the city, will lose the material remains of their culture as a testimony to their existence. In recent years, members of the Jewish community, but also the city administration, have been engaged in various ways to preserve the Jewish heritage. In particular, the local Jewish Museum, which functions not only as a place of remembrance for the Jewish community, but also as a place of history education for visitors to the city, is currently being renovated.
The paper will focus on how Sosúa addresses the historical significance of Jewish culture in the narratives it presents to today's community and visitors. Against the background of the ever-decreasing Jewish community in Sosúa, I explore how this absence manifest itself in the interpretation of Jewish heritage and how it is communicated. Based on ethnographic fieldwork I will focus on memory sites and practices of sharing and preserving Jewish history and culture by providing insights into current preservation projects, such as the conservation and digitization of the museum collection and the involvement of the Jewish community in cultural and tourism activities.
