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

viewed the Sinai Desert, Transjordan, Syria and Iraq as prospective areas of Jewish
colonization as well. 162
The American Minister to Rumania informed the State Department that the
Rumanian Government hoped that the issue of the Jews of Rumania, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary and Poland would be placed on the agenda of the Evian Conference. The
Rumanian Minister for Foreign Affairs intimated that his country would like to expel
annually the number of Jews corresponding to the Jewish birth rate. 163
Sumner Welles
warned it would be “unfortunate” if the creation of an international refugee conference
would be “construed as an encouragement of legislation or acts” that would foster further
refugee problems. 164 Rabbi Stephen Wise echoed such sentiments in an interview in
which he stated that the Evian Conference would not “sanction” the actions of any other
nation engaging in forced emigration. In addition, he warned the governments of various
Central and Eastern European nations that the United States Government would not “deal
with the problem of their own so-called superfluous populations.” 165 The Roosevelt
administration, therefore, planned to limit discussion at the refugee conference to strictly
German and Austrian refugees. It also avoided a specific reference to Jews, choosing
instead the term “political refugees.” 166
162 Hull to Taylor, January 1939, FRUS, 1939,” I, 66-69.
163 Gunther to Secretary of State, April 13, 1938, 840.48 Refugees/15, FRUS, vol. 1, 1938, 742-743.
164 Welles to Gunther April 16, 1938, 840.48 Refugees/165, FRUS, vol. 1, 1938, 743.
165 “Urge American Aid to Open Palestine,” New York Times, July 4, 1938, 13.
166 Diner, Beyond the Conceivable: Studies on Germany, Nazism, and the Holocaust (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 2000), 89
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