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

Government. 132 [See Appendix C for the formal statement released at end of the Evian
Conference.]
One Jewish editorialist commented that although the Evian Conference appeared
to be “doomed to failure” he optimistically believed that the “significance of the parley
itself and the broader picture obtained of the refugee problem [was] of inestimable value.
From this beginning (even though it may amount to a baby-step along a road which calls
for giant strides) will of necessity come drastic changes in immigration regulations.” 133
The Jewish Chronicle was bolstered by Taylor’s belief that the Conference represented
only the beginning of a long process that would eventually provide positive results. The
meeting got off to a “dismal start,” the paper believed, but ended with a “mood of
qualified optimism.” 134 The National Zeitung declared that “active aid to the refugees has
only just begun and will go ahead steadily” in close harmony with the “central theme of
the energetic speeches with which the French and British representatives closed the
conference sessions.” 135
Rabbi Jonah B. Wise praised the initiative of Roosevelt and the chairmanship of
Taylor for averting the “failure” that was predicted by “cynical observers.” The
Conference marked the ascendency of the world’s democracies away from their policies
of offering “humiliating deference to world tyrants.” The meeting was a “historic”
occasion in which the threat against human rights by the “brutalitarian theory of
132 The Times, July 28, 1938, 8.
133 “Are Refugees People?” The Southern Israelite, July 15, 1938, 2.
134 “The Refugees: Evian ‘Only A Beginning,’” The Jewish Chronicle, July 22, 1938 available from
http://www.morasha.it/tesi/dlcn/dlcn_a06.html ; accessed October 10, 2009.
135 National Zeitung (Basel), 1938 cited in Katz, “Public Opinion,” 123.
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