Dominican Republic

The exile of 1939 brought the Dominican Republic a small Basque colony, for which the island was, for almost everyone, only a stopping place, and a delegation of the Basque Government that ran from 1939 to 1948. Almost everything known about it was told by one of its delegates, Jesús de Galíndez, who wrote as a witness.

A country that opened its door

At the end of 1939 and in 1940 the Dominican Republic became a stepping stone for many political refugees. According to Galíndez, the country freely admitted all refugees when other American countries were closing their doors, even Mexico for a time. Almost 5,000 arrived in four months, and a small country with few resources was overwhelmed.²

The Basques numbered between a hundred and a hundred and fifty, and for almost all of them the island was just that, a stepping stone: they travelled straight on to Venezuela, some later moved to other countries in the Americas, and only some fifty stayed.² Among those fifty, the Bilbao sculptor Manolo Pascual headed the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, the economist Alfredo Lagunilla held a senior post in the Secretaría del Tesoro (Treasury Department) and Dr Manuel Martínez de Ubago practised as a physician.² Galíndez himself was a professor at the Escuela Diplomática y Consular and secretary of the Instituto de Legislación Americana Comparada de la Universidad de Santo Domingo (Institute of Comparative American Legislation of the University of Santo Domingo).²

The delegation (1939-1948)

The Basque delegation was organised at the end of 1939 to look after the refugees as they arrived. Its first delegate was Eusebio de Irujo; from April 1940 to January 1946 it was Jesús de Galíndez, and from February 1946, Manuel Martínez de Ubago.² Sanz Goikoetxea and Álvarez Gila complete the story. Irujo was transferred to Venezuela at the end of 1940. The Basque representatives tried to be recognised as a quasi-diplomatic body, and that brought them into conflict with both the Spanish and the Dominican governments. The delegation closed in 1948, when the disagreements with Trujillo’s dictatorship became impossible to resolve.³

Once the flood of refugees had passed, writes Galíndez, the mission came down to keeping up relations with the Basque colony, with the Dominican authorities and with the diplomatic corps. The most important events were those of the visit of lehendakari (president of the Basque Government) Aguirre, in October 1942.² A letter records the banquet held during that visit. There were four flags: the Dominican, the Catalan, the Spanish Republican and the Basque. Representatives of every family of the exile spoke and, when his turn came, Aguirre had reproaches for both sides.³

The seamen

The country’s two main ships were commanded by Basques, and both were torpedoed and sunk during the world war. The Presidente Trujillo had José Urrutxua, from Gernika, as captain, and as chief engineer his nephew Txomin de Urrutxua, who died in the sinking. The captain of the San Rafael was Juan Beotegi, from Mundaka, and his first officer, Alejandro de Solaetxe, from Barakaldo, also died. The President of the Republic, the authorities and the Basque delegate attended the funeral.²

Galíndez ends his text with two more Dominican names. During lehendakari Aguirre’s stay in Berlin, the person who helped him most personally was the Dominican minister Roberto Despradel, and the Dominican minister in Washington, Andrés Pastoriza, acted as go-between for his letters.²