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

domestic, economic, social and political considerations (the Anschluss, increasing
persecution of Austrian Jews and concerns about forced emigration of Eastern European
Jews as well as national security—perceived threats of a resurrected and powerful
Germany and fears of admitting enemy aliens) had forced the French Government, under
Premier Edouard Daladier, to adopt a policy of restricted immigration. The Third
Republic had “already reached, if not already passed, the extreme point of saturation.”
Since the end of the Great War approximately two hundred thousand refugees (Nansen,
Italian, Spanish and Central European) had already been admitted onto French soil of
which twenty percent were Jewish. France, Bérenger believed, was no longer capable of
accepting further refugees. The nation also faced the difficulties of assimilating the three
million aliens already resident within a country that had a population exceeding forty
million. 39 [See Appendix A for figures on Jews admitted into different countries, 1933-
1945, as noted by different authors and Appendix B for number of officially recorded
unassimilated political refugees within France 1922-1939.]
39 During the period between 1918-1933 France’s willingness to accept refugees was motivated not only
by humanitarian concerns but also as a means of replacing the laborers who had become the dead, missing
and wounded of the Great War. Both immigrants and displaced refugees would serve to restore and widen
the scope of the nation’s economic, agricultural and economic base as well as provide potential manpower
for the French armed services. A number of agreements were initialed during the Inter-War period to
import and employ foreign workers and included Poland, June 27, 1920; Czechoslovakia, January 15,
1921; Italy, May 21, 1921; Luxembourg, January 4, 1923;Belgium, December 27, 1923; Austria, July 31,
1928; Greece, March 11, 1929 and Rumania, February 3, 1930. Gary S. Cross, “Toward Social Peace and
Prosperity: The Politics of Immigration in France during the Era of World War I,” French Historical
Studies 11, no. 4 (Fall 1980): 610, 622. A clear differentiation was not made between the status of refugee
and immigrant as a variety of factors motivated transnational movements and included domestic political
instability or perceived threats to life and property. There was the belief that political refugees would
conflate their own security with that of France as compared with the motivations of immigrants who
entered the country for different reasons. Refugees were granted citizenship, identity papers and permits to
work in France but were excluded from voting. The French public remained supported of the entry of
refugees until the domestic and international political crisis shifted in the mid to late 1930s. The French
Government claimed that during 1933-1936 180,000-250,000 refugees had been accepted but late 1930s
sources maintain that the figure was as high as 400,000-600,000. Raymond Millet, Trois millions
d’etrangers en France Les indesirables Les bienvenus (Paris: 1938) and Simpson, The Refugee Problem,
333-334 cited in Maga “Closing the Door,” 425-426.
170