Eyes forward
Barbara Bandler Steinmetz
At the end of the 1947 school year, Barbara and Ann are once again off to a Jewish summer camp. Two months later, Margit and Alexander pick them up and bring them to yet another new city: Detroit. The Bandlers can still only afford to rent a one-room apartment, but Alexander has gotten a job at a nightclub which promises him a better livelihood. Margit finds work running the Jewish Community Center’s cafeteria, where she works alongside her niece, Panni. Everyone in the household chips in to support one another. Barbara attends school in Detroit with her sister, and after dismissal each afternoon she catches a streetcar to meet her mother and cousin and help them at work. Alexander prospers and secures a series of better paying positions in hospitality. Margit eventually finds a job at a pharmaceutical company…working in the kitchen. The influx of demobilized soldiers combines with male chauvinist attitudes to push many women out of professional careers despite their educational background, though Margit’s struggles with English also hamper her efforts to return to her profession as a pharmacist.
While the Bandlers steadily improve their fortunes in the U.S., the fate of Sosúa declines throughout the postwar period. In 1948, only 275 settlers remain in Sosúa, which had once been home to many hundreds more refugees. DORSA’s experiment under Trujillo would never became a profitable agricultural settlement, though a successful dairy cooperative founded by Jewish immigrants flourishes there for decades. Trujillo’s reign grows notoriously bloody throughout the 1950s, though his repression is not felt in Sosúa. Still, political unrest, economic woes, and scandal plagues the General’s rule. In May 1961, the embattled dictator is assassinated by a group of conspirators who ambushed his turquoise Chevrolet Bel Air. Trujillo’s death sets off a period of political instability in the Dominican Republic that drives many of the few remaining Jewish residents to emigrate.
Those immigrants who abandoned Sosúa would often remain in close contact over the years. Barbara’s parents, however, feel little nostalgia for the hardships they endured in their Caribbean refuge. They are too focused on making their way in an America that has greeted them with opportunity. “This is the country that gave you a home,” Alexander tells his wife and daughters, “this is the land that embraced you!”
And Barbara is indeed determined to become all-American. She meets her future husband, Howard Steinmetz, at a Jewish summer camp when she is just 14 and he is 18. “I walked around with my tongue hanging out,” she remembers, “and he thought I was just a cute little immigrant girl.” Their friendship, despite the difference in their ages, gives Barbara her first sense of being truly American.
Transcript
Barbara: In 1950 [sic: 1990], we heard that there was going to be a reunion in Sosúa. And so my sister and I decided that this was a good time for us to go back and find out where our life was, where we had left it, and renew acquaintanceships, and just-- just to go back and pick up some pieces of that life. And so in June of 1990, we went back to the 50th reunion. There were-- there are very few Jews left in Sosúa.
[...]
They want to make sure that the world remembers that Sosúa played a very important role in saving the lives of these few hundred Jews. Unfortunately, it could have saved the lives of 100,000 Jews. But that was obviously not to be. But we owe our lives to the fact that Sosúa is. And so this museum commemorates it. During this commemoration, the--the head of the government was invited to the Shabbat service that we had. And at that time, people got up to [PAUSES FOR 3 SECONDS] speak of their gratitude to the country for opening its doors, that this small country in the Caribbean, insignificant, seemingly insignificant little country that no one had ever heard of before, did open its doors, did save these people. And there isn't a one of them that isn't enormously grateful to the-- to the government of the Dominican Republic for saving their lives.
We also went back to Jarabacoa. We went-- well, we walked-- we went around Sosúa. And the school, the Escuela de Cristóbal Colon is still functioning, still a functioning school, and mostly for Dominican children. But it is still supported by the Jewish community of Sosúa. We-- we also went back to the Catholic school where I went to school, to La Escuela de Inmaculada Concepcion. And it is-- it is still there. It's-- it's been enlarged. But it's no longer a school. It's now just a place for-- for the nuns to go. But everything that we remembered is still there. The church is still there. And the grotto is still there. There was one experience that was--that-- that I remembered so clearly when I was a child there. My mother came to visit us once. And it must have been around the time of the High Holidays. And as I said, we obviously did not celebrate the High Holidays because we lived in this remote little village. And my mother came to visit us. And she said she wanted to go into the church. And I said, why do you want to go into the church? And she said she needed-- she felt that she needed to be in a house of prayer and that it didn't really matter what house of prayer that was. And it was-- it was just something that I-- that I totally remember. And you know, it probably is another thing that attaches us to Judaism, that when you are totally isolated from your peoplehood, that it is-- it's like having your arm cut off from you. And it probably was how my parents felt up in Jarabacoa, that they were totally separated from their peoplehood. And that probably was another reason why they wanted to come to the United States, that we do have a reason and a need to be together, to have a feeling of Klal Yisrael, of being together with the people of Israel.
"... people got up to speak of their gratitude to the country for opening its doors, that this small country in the Caribbean--insignificant, seemingly insignificant little country that no one had ever heard of before, did open its doors, did save these people."
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, Interview 38619
Barbara Bandler Steinmetz' Timeline
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Rome-Berlin Axis Agreement
Italy, under fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, concludes an alliance with Germany's Hitler. Mussolini later issues anti-Jewish legislation and enforces persecution of Italian Jewish community.
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Barbara Bandler is born in Győr, Hungary
Her parents, Margit and Alexander Bandler, are Hungarian citizens but live in Italy, where Alexander owns a hotel on the Adriatic island of Lussinpiccolo, just off the coast of what is today Croatia. They return to Italy soon after Barbara’s birth
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Publication of the “Race Manifesto” in Italy
Published anonymously but drawn up by a scholar with close ties to the Fascist government, the article outlines in ten clauses a theoretical framework for the concept of race in Fascist Italy, according to which Italians are essentially Aryan and Jews do not belong to the Italian race.
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Italy adopts antisemitic laws
Italy adopts a series of antisemitic “Race Laws.” A September 5, 1938 law prohibits Jews from studying or teaching at Italian public schools and universities. A September 7, 1938 law retroactively annuls Italian citizenship granted to Jewish immigrants to Italy after 1919 and revokes permanent residency in Italy for foreign Jews, requiring them to leave the country within six months. Like the Nuremberg Race Laws and other Nazi legislation, additional laws prohibits marriage between Jews and “Aryans,” define who is Jewish, and require all Italian Jews to register, as well as placing restrictions on professional activities and business ownership.
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Italy and Germany sign the “Pact of Steel”
Expanding on the alliance between the two countries since the Rome-Berlin Axis of October 1936, in the “Pact of Steel” (officially the Pact of Friendship and Alliance) Italy and Germany agree to military cooperation and mutual defense. Despite this agreement, Italy remains neutral during the first year of the war, only entering the war as Germany’s ally in June 1940.
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Rafael Trujillo and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee sign an agreement
The document formalized the first wave of Jewish immigration to a 26,000 acre agricultural settlement in Sosúa, on the northern coast of Hispaniola. The New York City-based American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee set up a separate arm, the Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA), to establish Sosúa as an agricultural community.
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France formally surrenders to Nazi Germany
Much of France falls to Nazi domination. Parts of southern France are governed by a Nazi collaborator government headed by Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain, called the "Vichy" regime after its capital.
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Vichy France enacts anti-Jewish legislation
The collaborationist Vichy government enacts a series of anti-Jewish laws in accordance with Nazi policy.
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Germany orders closure of US diplomatic missions
After the US State Department orders the closure of German consulates in the United States because German diplomats are suspected of spying, Germany and Italy order all American consulates in Axis-occupied Europe to cease operation, closing the door for refugees fleeing Nazi persecution to apply for immigration to the United States.
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Bandlers set sail for the Dominican Republic
Aboard the Portuguese ship Nyassa, the family sail for the Caribbean, making a stop at Ellis Island on the way.
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DORSA establishes a hotel in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic for new Jewish settlers
Disease, fatigue, poor sanitation, the brutal sun, and the emotional distress of dislocation all take their toll on the island’s new Jewish residents. DORSA organizers recognize the need to provide ailing refugees with a place to recuperate from their exertions, and ask Alexander and Margit Bandler to manage the refuge.
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The Battle of the Caribbean
In an attempt to disrupt the Allied supply of oil and other material by targeting their points of origin in the Caribbean, German and Italian submarines torpedoed 263 ships in the Caribbean, including two Dominican ships. The S. S. Presidente Trujillo and the San Rafael, both named by the Dominican president after himself, were sunk, and 25 crew members were killed.
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Allies denounce Nazi mass murder of Jews
Reports of the Nazi plan to murder all of the Jewish people in Europe begin to circulate in the second half of 1942 and are widely reported in U.S. newspapers in late November. On December 17 1942, the Allied governments denounce the mass murder of European Jews under Nazi control. Though Nazi crimes are now publicized, Allied forces do not target Nazi killing installations or prioritize the rescue of Jews.
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Ads for Margit Bandler’s cosmetics company appear in American Jewish newspapers
Lori (Elenor) Mayer, one of Margit’s childhood friends who had immigrated to Boston in the mid-1930s, sees the advertisement in 1945, and sends a letter to Margit in Jarabacoa. Lori and her husband, Eugene, later secure work visas for the Bandlers to enter the U.S.
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Nazis install new fascist government in Hungary
Nazis arrest Hungarian leader Miklos Horthy and install a new government under Ferenc Szalasi, leader of the fascist and radically antisemitic Arrow Cross Party.
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Mass executions of Budapest Jews
Between December 1944 and January 1945, approximately 20,000 Jews from Budapest's ghetto are taken to the banks of the Danube, where they are murdered and their bodies thrown into the river.
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Soviet forces liberate Budapest
After nearly two months, Soviet forces succeed in liberating Budapest from Nazi and Hungarian fascist control. Approximately 100,000 Jews survive, mostly thanks to protections offered by foreign diplomats such as Raoul Wallenberg.
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Bandler family leaves the Dominican Republic for the U.S.
With little notice, Barbara boards a bus to Santo Domingo, then a plane to Miami, FL, then another bus to Boston, MA where she and her family begin their new American life.
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Sosúa project dwindles
By the late 1940s, only 275 settlers remain in Sosúa, which had once been home to many hundreds more refugees. DORSA’s experiment under Trujillo never becomes a profitable agricultural settlement, though a successful dairy cooperative founded by Jewish immigrants flourishes there for decades.
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Hungarian People's Republic established
Soviet forces had remained in Hungary after liberating the country from Nazi occupation in 1944. After the war, Hungary had held democratic elections, but under Soviet influence the Communists successively neutralized all other parties until, in 1949, voters were presented with ballots with only one party list. The newly elected Communist legislature adopted a new, Soviet-style constitution and became a Soviet satellite.
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Barbara becomes a U.S. citizen
Just a few months before her 16th birthday, Barbara takes the oath to become a United States citizen.
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Barbara Bandler graduates high school
She and her boyfriend, Howard Steinmetz, make plans to wed, but her father insists she complete her college education before marrying. The two reach an agreement, and Barbara and Howard are married in 1956, after Barbara is accepted to college.
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Hungarian Revolution of 1956
Student demonstrations in Budapest calling for political and social reforms grow into a broad-based, nationwide popular uprising against the Soviet-backed government of the Hungarian People's Republic. Despite the movement's initial success, the revolution is brutally crushed by Soviet military intervention. Some 200,000 people flee the country in the course of the revolution.
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Rafael Trujillo assassinated
Trujillo’s reign grows notoriously bloody throughout the 1950s, though his repression is not felt in Sosúa. Still, political unrest, economic woes, and scandal plague the General’s rule. In May 1961, the embattled dictator is assassinated by a group of conspirators who ambushed his turquoise Chevrolet Bel Air. Trujillo’s death sets off a period of political instability in the Dominican Republic that drives many of the few remaining Jewish residents to emigrate.
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Barbara and Howard move to Boulder, CO
After vacationing in Colorado for decades, the pair finally decide to settle permanently.