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

Department allocated the majority of the allotment to the four Consulates in Germany:
Stuttgart, 11,000; Vienna, 6,000; and 3,000 respectively for Berlin and Hamburg. The
remaining four thousand were released to worldwide U.S. Consulates. 24
Desperate
German Jews, in the meantime, searched through the New York City and Chicago phone
books searching for possible American relatives. “They copy the names and addresses of
American Jews to whom they hope they are related.” 25
The State Department announced that an immense amount of red tape
preparatory work dealing with the financial and political aspects of immigration into the
U. S. would be necessary before German and Austrian Jews could embark on the
“exodus” to America and other destinations and might require five to ten years before the
project could be completed. 26
The Protestant writer Jochen Klemmer perceptively
observed in his diary on August 23, 1938 that the failure of the Evian Conference placed
the German Jews in a “far more tragic” position in the hands of their Nazi tormentors. 27
Once again, the immediacy of the human tragedy that was playing out within
Greater Germany and its implications was lost on the delegations and their respective
governments. Rescue required prompt and bold action rather than a contemplative,
limited and drawn out affair. Failure to resolve the Jewish Question reinforced the
hardliners. Palestine represented the best, although imperfect, solution but British
resistance and Jewish disunity barred the Wandering Jew from the Promised Land.
24 “US Stops Jews in Reich from Seeking Visas: Over 60,000 Have Sought to Emigrate on Quota of
27,000,” Washington Post, July 19, 1938, 3.
25 “Reich Jews Hunt Kinfolk in American Directories,” New York Times, July 31, 1938, 29.
26 “Red Tape Slows Up German Refugees Movement to U.S.,” Tampa Tribune, July 25, 1938, 7.
27 Jacques Semelin. Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide (NY: Columbia
University Press, 2007), 130.
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