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

Powerful nations, enjoying sovereignty and freedom, have only their
own countries to fall back upon. But Jewish refugees have a choice of
many lands to pick from. If one prefers the humid heat of the jungles
of Guiana, he is welcome to it. If someone else’s taste runs to tsetse
flies and similar blessings of East Africa, they are at his disposal.
Verily, it is good to be a refugee. 19
Similar passionate sentiments were expressed by Ottawa merchant and President of the
Canadian Zionist Organization Archibald J. Freiman on December 13, 1938 in response
to the “Madagascar Plan,” espoused by a number of European nations and more recently
by Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the S.S. Security Service:
We don’t want the jungles of Africa—we are people, we are human
beings. We don’t want to hurt anybody, but we have a right as human
beings to be on this earth. We are not any better but certainly not any
worse and you cannot show me a time in history when Jews acted
towards nations as an alleged civilized nation is treating the Jews in
Germany. We don’t want the jungles of Africa, we want Palestine. 20
Henri Bérenger concluded his remarks by expressing French contentment at
hosting the Conference in such a “harmonious atmosphere” that Evian and its environs
were able to provide. He also praised France’s long democratic and republican traditions
which infused the “moral and material tranquility” necessary for serious deliberations
that sought to maintain international peace and the “freedom of all citizens of the
world.” 21 Despite Bérenger’s public optimism Daladier recognized that the Evian
Conference was an exercise in futility and concluded that stricter controls on immigration
needed to be instituted. He advised the Chamber of Deputies that the more recent
19 Alan Dowty, Closed Borders: The Contemporary Assault on Freedom of Movement (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1987), 93.
20 Valerie Knowles, First Person: A Biography of Cairine Wilson, Canada’s First Woman Senator
(Toronto, Canada: Dunburn Press, LTD., 1988), 209.
21 “Proceedings,” July 15, 1938, 44-45.
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