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

Despite the efforts of the central government and local authorities to prevent anti-
Semitic violence the return of large numbers of Jews from Austria and other nations
stimulated wide spread anti-Semitic sentiments and actions. The Camp for National
Unity, established in March 1937, sought to unify the various Polish nationalist groups
under the patronage of the political elite while promoting anti-Semitism and the exclusion
of Jews from Polish society. General Stanislaw Skwarczynski, the leader of the Camp,
declared on February 21, 1938 that Jews represented an “obstacle to the normal evolution
of the State” due to their loyalty to international Jewry; a state of affairs that was bound
to generate “hostile feelings” between the Christians and the Jews. Such a situation could
only be resolved by a “radical decrease” in the size of the Jewish population utilizing a
system of organized mass emigration to Palestine, Madagascar and other locales. During
May he called for the “Polonization” of the national economy as a means of countering
the Jewish threat. 154
Anti-Semitic actions in Poland, of course, antedated the Anschluss. A petition to
the Polish Government on July 9, 1937, signed by 130 Cincinnati multidenominational
clergymen, was read into the House Congressional Record by Representative Herbert S.
Bigelow (Ohio) accusing the Government for failing to protect its minorities as called for
dispatched a three man team of investigators to analyze the island’s potential for mass resettlement. Adolf
Eichmann submitted a report during early 1938 to higher S.S. officials on the same topic. Following the
Fall of France Hitler authorized the enactment of such a scheme but the failure to gain control of the sea
from the British Royal Navy put an end to such planning. “Madagascar Plan” Shoah Resource Center
available from www.yadvashem.org ; Internet, accessed October 3, 2010. The Polish Government decision
to annul the passports of expatriates residing in Greater Germany during October 1938 helped to set in
motion the series of events that culminated in Kristallnacht.
154 Schneiderman, ed., American Jewish Year Book Review of the Year 5698, 40.
106