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

anti-Semitic policies before the “bar of civilized world opinion, but although
condemnation was decisive and unqualified” it failed to stop or reduce the depredations
of a criminal government which appears to have neither conscience nor regard for world
opinion.” 94
Representatives to the conference “manipulated the Intergovernmental
Committee largely for their own ends, especially to deflect humanitarian pressure” from
their respective countries. 95 Simultaneously they expressed “warm words of idealism”
awhile offering “few encouraging practical suggestions.” 96 Country after country
expressed their “platonic sympathies” for the plight of the refugees but presented a
variety of explanations as to why they could not provide any meaningful refuge. 97 Most
of the Evian delegates were drawn from embassy staff or were foreign ministry senior
officials; no heads of state attended—representative selections that prevented the
immediate enactment of any decisive policy measures. In addition, each delegation
avoided “precise commitments” to accept specified numbers of refugees. The French
representatives sidestepped any consideration of resettlement in colonial possessions and
along with the British prevented inclusion of the Eastern European Jewish Question in
the conference agenda. 98
94 Schneiderman, ed., Review of the Year 1938-1939, American Jewish Committee, 3.
95 Tommie Sjoberg, The Powers and the Persecuted: The Refugee Problem and the Intergovernmental
Committee on Refugees (Lund: Lund University Press, 1991), 5 cited in London, Whitehall and the Jews, 5.
96 St. Petersburg Times, July 8, 1938.
97 S.D. Waley to Sir Frederick Phillips, memorandum, Evian Conference, June 17, 1938cited in London,
Whitehall and the Jews, 88.
98 Foreign Ministry, “Note de la sous-direction des Affaires Administratives et des Unions
Internationales: Le comité d’Evian et la question des réfugiés israélites allemands,”, November 21, 1938,
DDF, 2ème séries, tome XIII, doc. no. 348, 680-88 cited in Caron, Uneasy Asylum, 185.
281