The Jewish Trail of Tears The Evian Conference of ... - Haruth.com

the refugees under consideration were euphemistically categorized as “political refugees
from Germany and Austria” and not as Jews. 86
Such a conference could also serve as a means of converting isolationist
sentiments in the American public to “active opposition [to] international gangsters” and
reinforce America’s long-established image as a “haven for the politically oppressed.” 87
The mere convocation of such a meeting served to demonstrate American disapproval of
German anti-Semitic policies. 88 However, if the conference successfully created a
mechanism that facilitated the orderly exodus of Jews from Germany then, it was hoped,
German “militancy” regarding Aryans and non-Aryans could be curtailed. 89
A Jewish
advisor to FDR, Isador Lubin, believed that the decision to call the Evian Conference was
the result of pressure applied by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, a Roosevelt friend and advisor,
“for whom [Roosevelt] had a great deal of affection.” 90 FDR met with Wise, Bernard M.
Baruch and Louis Kennedy during April 1938 and informed these Jewish leaders that the
U.S. would have to “relax” the rules and regulations dealing with visa affidavits and “if
we really want to be of help, we will have to permit the incoming of refugees without
affidavits.” 91 Frances Perkins, U.S. Secretary of Labor, held that the President had been
86 Mashberg, “American Diplomacy,” 346.
87 Newsweek, April 4, 1938.
88 Michael Blakeney, Australia and the Jewish Refugees, 1933-1948 (Sydney, Australia: Croom Helm,
1985), 127.
89 Tampa Tribune, March 25, 1938, 1, 9.
90 Letter from Lubin to Feingold, September 26, 1963 in Feingold, The Politics of Rescue, 23.
91 Memo of conference with Roosevelt and State Department, April 13, 1938, Robert Szold Papers, Box
25/File 16, Zionist Archives, New York, cited in Herbert Druks, The Uncertain Friendship: the U.S. and
Israel from Roosevelt to Kennedy (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001), 3.
88