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

to appease American public opinion. 27
Italian Fascist editor Virginio Gayda, writing for
the Giornale d’Italia, concluded that the Evian Conference “failed to deliver any tangible
results” and despite the many declarations of “good intentions…nobody…want[ed] the
Jews.” He criticized the American President for “never overlook[ing] an occasion for
filling the world with some resounding verbal gesture.” Since each country preferred
some other nation to accept the refugees “the merry game of passing responsibility along
continues uninterruptedly.” 28
The British weekly paper, Observer, warned that the
“further accretion of, say 100,000” Jews into the country risked the “danger” of
fomenting “anti-Jewish feeling…” The refugee problem would be insoluble “unless
every great country [took] her proportionate share.” 29
Sir Neill Malcolm succeeded James G. McDonald as the League of Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees from Germany in February 1936. 30
Although he was
authorized “to undertake consultations by the most suitable method” with nations of
potential resettlement he soon realized [an analysis supported by many private
27 British Documents, 3 rd Series, III, pp. 294-296, November 24, 1938, Neville Chamberlain-Edouard
Daladier conversations cited in Feingold Politics of Rescue, 29.
28 “Concern for Jews in Held Insincere,” New York Times, November 22, 1938, 4.
29 Observer, July 31, 1938 cited in Hamerow, Why We Watched, 103, 104.
30 The High Commissioner for Political Refugees from Germany was established by the League in 1933
with James G. McDonald as its first commissioner; a post he held from 1933-1935. Due to official German
protests the Commissioner was based in Lausanne rather than at the League itself in Geneva. McDonald
sought to extend the term of the Nansen Passport system but was blocked by the French and British as they
pursued a policy of appeasement with Germany. McDonald, during his tenure as High Commissioner,
successfully found refuge for approximately 60,000 refugees. Under Sir Neill Malcolm the League
adopted an “Arrangement” in July 1936 allowing member states to issue travel documents to Germans and
other stateless refugees leaving the Reich. Jews represented the greatest percentage following the
enactment of the Nuremberg Racial Laws of 1935. Consequently, the Convention on the Status of
Refugees Coming from Germany” was formally adopted in February 1938 and was eventually extended to
Austria and Czechoslovakia. John C. Torpey The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship, and
the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 138.
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