Henry Zvi Ucko (1910-1995) was a writer, teacher, and rabbi in Germany until political conditions and growing anti-semitism led him to emigrate. In 1939, he fled to Amsterdam and then immigrated to the Dominican Republic, where he organized a congregation in Santo Domingo (Ciudad Trujillo) and began researching the history of Jews in that country. He moved to the United States in 1946. The collection includes correspondence, writings, notes, photographs, reference material, clippings, and prayer books relating to Ucko's research into the history of Jews in the Dominican Republic, especially the assimilation of Sephardic Jews into Dominican society. Correspondence chiefly concerns Ucko's attempts to secure funding and a publisher for his research. Also included is correspondence with Haim Horacio Lopez Penha, a writer from the Dominican Republic who encouraged Ucko to write a history of the Jews in the Dominican Republic, and with President Rafael L. Trujillo Molina, who pledged the interest and cooperation of the Dominican government in support of Ucko's research. Writings and notebooks are based chiefly on research conducted in the Dominican Republic in the summer of 1957, with the support of the American Jewish Historical Society and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. Also included are photographs of tombstones in the Jewish cemetery in Santo Domingo, probably taken during Ucko's research trip in 1957; reference material about Jews and the Dominican Republic; and two prayer books. Many items, including letters and writings, are in Spanish, and some have English translations. Three letters are in German, and the prayer books are in Hebrew, one with an English translation.
