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

efugees whose residency permits had expired would face deportation back to Germany
or arrest and imprisonment. Also, refugees who failed to obtain gainful employment
faced similar consequences. Following Kristallnacht the Daladier Government issued a
decree calling for the establishment of detention camps for illegal refugees and for those
who failed to meet the terms of the May 1938 decree. An additional edict, issued on
April 12, 1939, called for obligatory labor and military service for political refugees who
had resided within France for more than two months. The border security police were
empowered to block the entry of any refugee that was considered unfit for military
service or hard labor. 22
Following the closing of the Evian Conference the U.S. Government dispatched
officials to ascertain the current situation of “potential refugees” within Greater Germany.
State Department Counsel George Brandt visited Vienna, Berlin, Stuttgart and Hamburg.
The purpose of the “Brandt Mission” was to obtain data from “American sources”
regarding the nature and number of people seeking to leave Germany under the auspices
of the IGCR and a report was to be submitted in London by August 7. 23
By July 18 the
American Consul General in Berlin announced that further applications for visas into the
U.S. would no longer be accepted due to heavy demand. Ten thousand files involving
fifteen thousand refugees were already under review. More than sixty thousand requests
had already been submitted for an annual quota of approximately 27,370. The State
22 Taylor to FDR report “The Tragic Position of the Jewish Refugees in France,” December 1938 and the
new decree-laws April-August1939 cited in Maga, “Closing the Door,” 438-439.
23 St. Petersburg Times, July 16, 1938. Brandt served as a Turkish language officer for the State
Department in Constantinople and Cairo and had a number of consular assignments. He served as the
Assistant Chief of the Visa Office from 1924-1928 and aided the House Committee on Immigration in the
writing of the Immigration Act of 1924. He served as a technical advisor to the Evian Conference and
IGCR and in 1938-39 served as an immigration advisor in the Philippine Islands.
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