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

Various members of the Anglo-British Jewish elite, such as Anthony de
Rothschild, Neville Laski, Robert Waley-Cohen, Lord Bearsted and others were more
concerned about maintaining their social positions within British society and especially to
avoid the proverbial charges of dual loyalties. 58 Otto Schiff (1875-1952), was a banker of
German background, who became president of the Jews’ Temporary Shelter, a major
communal organization providing services to refugees. Schiff had received the Order of
the British Empire (OBE) for his work with Belgian refugees during the Great War. He
founded the Jewish Refugees Committee (later renamed the German Jewish Aid
Committee in 1938).
Schiff, along with Lionel Cohen, Neville Laski and Leonard Montefiore presented
to the British Cabinet, during April 1933, a personal financial pledge that guaranteed
German Jewish refugees admitted into the U.K. would not become public charges.
Consequently, the Cabinet authorized a very liberal interpretation of the immigration
requirements while viewing Britain as a way station on the road to overseas resettlement.
As a result, approximately thirty thousand Jews entered the island nation by the end of
1938. By December 1939 these guarantors and other members of the local Jewish
community had contributed £3,000,000.
58 Weizmann opposed any fund raising program that diverted funds away from Palestine and hoped to
see 500,000 Jews resettled in the Mandate before his death. Conservative non-Zionist Jewish leaders in the
UK and France, such as Lionel and Anthony de Rothschild, Sir Robert Waley-Cohen and Baron Robert de
Rothschild tended, according to James G. McDonald, League High Commissioner for Political Refugees
from 1933-1935 and later chair of the President’s Advisory Committee on Political Refugees, gave limited
support to resettlement of German Jews and underestimated the plight of the German Jewish community.
The Baron viewed German Jews as more German than Jewish and was concerned about the number of
refugees already admitted into France. Laski was president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and
official spokesman on foreign affairs of the British Jewish community.
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