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"Dictators, Democracy, and Latin American Jewry:
Some Political Paradoxes of Our Hemisphere"
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Abstract –
At the height of the excitement over Soviet anti-Semitism, a South American delegate to the UN said to me, “You Jews are really unlucky. First, Hitler persecuted you. Then Stalin. And now to top it off, your new savior has arisen in the person of Generalissimo Trujillo.”
While temporary leader of his country's delegation to the UN, the Dominican Republic's strong man had, in February 1953, come out strongly against Soviet anti-Semitism, demanding UN action against it, and offering shelter to up to 25,000 Jews from countries behind the Iron Curtain.
Nor was Trujillo the only Latin American dictator to take this stand. On January 28, 1953, Argentina's General Juan Domingo Per6n again declared his opposition to anti-Semitism, at home as well as abroad. He added that the only solution of the problem was to strengthen Israel, and promised to do his share in this. And this wasn't all. He also announced that, though the natural haven for Jewish refugees from the East was Israel, Argentina's doors too would be open to them. A day later the Cuban dictator, General Fulgencio Batista, convoked his Council of Ministers, who exhorted the UN members to unite in an effort to stop the Soviet persecution of Jews. And the Cuban Foreign Office cabled an offer to Mr. Sharett to bring the matter up in the second half of the seventh UN Assembly.
© 2009 Commentary Inc.
