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

territories on to which resettlement could occur. The issue of appropriate travel
documents and finance would also have to be faced. Taylor emphasized the “liberality”
of existing American immigration laws and highlighted the consolidation of the annual
German and Austrian quotas allowing 27,370 to enter per year; an annual quota that had
not been completely filled since 1915. 27
Significantly, the merging of the two quotas, which marked the extent of
American rescue efforts at the meeting, allayed the fears of the other delegations that they
would be subjected to American pressure to modify their respective immigration policies.
Harold Troper and Irving Abella noted that the representatives were “stunned; the nations
of the world had been mobilized for this?” The council members issued a “collective
sigh” but for the population at risk Taylor’s announcement denoted a “cruel letdown; for
everyone [else] at Evian it was a reprieve.” 28
The American Chairman concluded by stating that the “forced and chaotic
dumping of unfortunate people in large numbers” would exacerbate existing global
27 “Proceedings,” July 6, 1938, 11-13. A group of prominent Englishmen, including the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Lord Noel-Buxton, Lord Cecil and Sir Wyndham Deeds, recommended on July 27, 1937, that
the British Foreign Office propose the creation of a permanent inter-governmental organization to deal with
the problem of the German refugee that would replace the League’s High Commission for German
Refugees and the Nansen Office that were officially slated to close by the end of 1938. Support was
offered by the High Commissioner Sir Neill Malcolm during September 1937 when he noted that “no
appreciable progress has been made in the emigration and settlement of refugees.” Consequently,
following the approval of the League Assembly in October 1937, an inter-governmental conference
approved the February 1938 Convention concerning the Status of Refugees coming from Germany; a
measure that would grant refugees papers similar to the Nansen Passport. The refugee would also be
granted the right to work (permis de travail) within the signatory nations of the U.K., France, Belgium,
Spain, The Netherlands, Denmark and Norway, provided they had maintained residence within the
respective nation for at least three years, married a national or had a child who had been granted citizenship
of that country. The League Council called for the consolidation, on May 15, of the Nansen Office and
High Commission for German Refugees under a single High Commissioner. However, the refugees
generated by the Anschluss in March were not placed under the terms of this new convention until June 12.
Schneiderman, ed., American Jewish Year Book Review of the Year 5698, 343-345.
28 Irving Abella and Harold Troper, None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1945 (NY:
1982), 31.
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