Jewish Refugee Colony, The Sosua Experiment, 1940-1941, Collection of Memorabilia 

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Jun 12, 2015 - Jun 13, 2015

Set Reminder 2015-06-12 10:00:00 2015-06-13 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : American History Live Salesroom Auction https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/cowans/american-history-live-salesroom-auction-663
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• Lot Description
  A collection consisting of a large 90+ page scrapbook with heavy black binding, 12 x 16 in., containing various ephemera concerning the Sosua Experiment, ca 1940-1941, which was an attempt in 1940-45 to save Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe and resettle them in the Western Hemisphere. Sosua was the only such project that ever materialized, and even it was doomed to be a "spectacular failure.” 
   
  40pp of this scrapbook hold more than 50 large, original photographs, most approx. 7.5 x 9 in., with close to 30 documenting living, working, and visiting the Sosua Community, ca 1941. Others show official gatherings of the men who conceived and carried out the project.
  
  The scrapbook also contains almost 30pp of various newspaper clippings, and more than a dozen pages preserve original booklets, programs, brochures, documents & other printed ephemera from and about Sosua.
  
  In addition, the scrapbook contains a 3pp TLS signed by Dominican Republic President Rafael Trujillo with many details about the Sosua project.
  
  Found with the scrapbook and included in this collection are 15 large cardboard-mounted and unmounted photographs, most measuring approx. 7.25 x 9.25 in. (sight), many accompanied by printed or hand-written labels and identifications. Most document diplomatic groups from the United States, Latin America, and South America in the 1940s.
  
  The scrapbook was apparently compiled and inscribed on the first page by Alfred Wagg, 3rd, to THE CHIEF. Alfred Wagg was from a prominent banking family and he served as Secretary to the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees. He was also an assistant to Robert T. Pell, Assistant Chief of the Division of European Affairs, State Department. As Wagg's "Chief," Pell was probably the original recipient of this scrapbook.
  
  Alternately, the scrapbook could possibly have been presented to James N. Rosenberg. Several of the documents, ephemera & photographs in the scrapbook pertain directly to Rosenberg. James Rosenberg was President of the Dominican Republic Settlement Association. The TLS from President Trujillo is a personal letter addressed to James Rosenberg.
  
  James Rosenberg (1874-1970) received his law degree from Columbia in 1898. In 1922, he founded the New Art Gallery in New York. Rosenberg became president of the American Society for Jewish Farm Settlements in 1928. In 1947, Rosenberg retired from law practice and devoted himself to art.
  
  Robert T. Pell was also the alternate U.S. delegate to the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, and the liaison between the IGCR and the State Department. Pell and Wagg were working against the serious opposition of assistant secretary of state Breckinridge Long. In the spring of 1941, Long's opposition to the activities of the IGCR led to Pell's resignation from the committee. Pell resigned in part because Long had effectively fired Pell's trusted assistant, Alfred Wagg, without cause by simply discontinuing the position. Long also reassigned Pell's refugee responsibilities to the notoriously anti-refugee European Division. "Breckinridge Long and his fellow restrictionists at the State Department, with their bureaucratic weaponry, had succeeded not only in closing the United States to the refugees but also in closing the hemisphere to them as well."
  
  After these events played out, Alfred Wagg most probably made this scrapbook for Robert Pell as a final record & memory of their work together establishing Sosua in the Dominican Republic.
   
  Three sources of opposition probably doomed Sosua from the start, including: 
  
  1-US assistant secretary of state Breckinridge Long's opposition to the resettlement of European refugees;
   
  2-Zionists opposed the Sosua solution as a distraction from their main strategy, which was settlement in Palestine;
   
  3-Franklin D. Roosevelt's indecisiveness. In a high-profile incident, Roosevelt refused political asylum to the passengers of the MS St. Louis ocean liner, forcing them back to Europe. There were 937 European Jews on the St. Louis who were refused entry in the United States. 757 refugees were saved at Sosua. Yet the St. Louis incident has taken on emblematic significance, while the Sosúa colony has remained in relative obscurity. 
  
  Trujillo offered to resettle 100,000 Jewish refugees from Europe, yet less than 800 refugees ever made it to Sosua. The Sosua experiment became a story of what might have been rather than what was. One settler at Sosua remembered that “No one wanted us … he was the only one who took us in.”

  Condition

  Most pages of the scrapbook are stained with the original mounting glue. After 75 years, the glue is not holding well and some items are pulling away from the pages. Otherwise, the scrapbook & contents are in generally good & complete condition. Photographs in scrapbook of excellent contrast and exposure. Most of the loose photos are in quite good condition.
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