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

The private organizations, Jewish and non-Jewish, presented five major
suggestions to resolve the refugee crisis: 1. Application of pressure upon His Majesty’s
Government to open the gates of Palestine to Jewish settlement. 2. Negotiations with the
Reich to increase the amount of personal finances and assets that could be removed by
the émigrés which at that time was limited to five percent of their holdings. 3.
Establishment of an international loan to subsidize resettlement of forced refugees. 4.
Negotiate with governments to liberalize immigration without revision of current “quotas
and regulations.” 5. Grant permanent residency status and work permits to refugees in
countries of temporary haven. As demonstrated, all of these suggested measures were
either ineffectual or ignored. 50
Solomon Adler-Rudel recalled that standing before the White sub-Committee was
an entirely “humiliating experience” due to lack of preparation on the part of the Evian
Conference representatives themselves as well as the witnesses appearing before the
panel, “none of whom were accustomed to “any kind of interrogation procedure in front
of a Committee.” The speakers felt themselves to be “on trial” and were decidedly
handicapped with the lack of time to adequately and clearly make their case.
Consequently, “all left the room disheartened and disillusioned.” 51
Years later, Dr.
Nahum Goldmann laid some of the blame on “too many organizations [that] applied and
conference: “The reception of the delegation representatives was a truly melancholy affair. The delegation
spokesmen stood by the door of the meeting room. Everyone who entered was given 3-4 minutes to make
his presentation. No questions were asked. The first few had their remarks translated into English or
French; for those who followed even this gesture of courtesy was omitted. Spokesmen found themselves
back in the waiting room before they even grasped that they had already appeared before the committee.
Adler-Rudel correspondence, 194 cited in Beit-Zvi, “Post-Ugandan Zionism,” 149.
50 “Nations Gathered at Evian for First Refugee Parley,” The Southern Israelite, July 8, 1938, 8.
51 Adler-Rudel, “The Evian Conference,” 255.
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