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

isk of bolshevism or of becoming an underworld of “politico-criminal subhumans”; a
possibility that the Reich would not tolerate. Thus, the Government would be forced to
deal with the Jewish criminal element in the same manner in which “we exterminate
criminals generally—by fire and sword.” 153 The German Ministry of Foreign Affairs
informed its diplomats abroad that the emigration of one hundred thousand Jews had
fostered anti-Jewish sentiments in other countries. Continued forced deportations,
especially of impoverished Jews, would increase the resistance of the citizens of
receiving nations to further acceptance of Jews and would, therefore, provide sympathy
and support for official German anti-Semitic actions. 154
The failure of the Evian Conference thus marked a significant turning point in
the fate of Central European Jewry. Following the closure of the Conference Yugoslavia
and Hungary closed its borders to Jewish refugees and Italy announced its own program
of anti-Semitic decrees. Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium also bolstered
security along its borders as well. 155
Yitzhak Arad maintained that the failure of the Conference placed the fate of
German and Austrian Jews “completely in the hands” of the Nazi regime; a failure that
was fully utilized for the use of anti-Jewish and anti-democratic propaganda and
justification for more radical measures. It was not a coincidence, Arad and others
believed that Kristallnacht (and the tragedy of the S.S. St. Louis) occurred a few months
153 Otto D. Tolischus, “Fire and Sword New Nazi Threat,” New York Times, November 23, 1938, 1, 8.
154 Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946) Vol. 6,
87ff in Ervin Straub, The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and other Group Violence (Cambridge,
MA: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 155-156.
155 Marrus, The Unwanted, 169.
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