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

meet in an unofficial capacity with a representative of the IGCR to study the issue of
Jewish resettlement. 7
Critics of the IGCR viewed it as a “face-saving refugee organization” that would
be relegated to “endless bickering” with member States and with the German
Government, especially over the issue of the retention of personal property and assets.
Currently, the forced émigrés were “plucked practically as clean as dressed fowl” before
being allowed to leave Greater Germany. 8
Following the conclusion of the Evian Conference Taylor did suggest to
Secretary Hull that the United States openly proclaim its willingness to accept a
significant proportion of the six hundred thousand Germans and Austrians who were
expected to become involuntary migrants within the next five years. Without such a
declaration, Taylor warned, the “other countries of settlement will claim that they are not
obligated to commit themselves and we shall have no plan to present to the German
Government.” Hull was faced with two possible dilemmas: such an American invitation
could prove too successful and incur the wrath of an increasingly restrictionist Congress
that could interfere with other items on FDR’s political agenda. In addition, relaxation of
immigration barriers could incite large-scale forced emigration from the East. Hull
7 “Memorandum by the Foreign Minister” to Hitler, RM 266, Paris, doc. 372, December 9, 1938, DGFP,
series D, vol. 4, 481-482 cited in Caron, Uneasy Asylum, 487. Ribbentrop did express to Bonnet that
German Jews were “without exception pickpockets, murderers and thieves. The property they possessed
had been acquired illegally. The German Government had therefore decided to assimilate them with the
criminal elements of the population.” Their “illegally” obtained property would be seized by the State and
Jews would be isolated in ghettoes “frequented by the criminal classes” and be subject to “policeobservation
like other criminals.” The Reich could not prevent “these criminals [from escaping] to other
countries which seemed so anxious to have them.” However, they would be prevented from retaining “the
property which had resulted from their illegal operations…” Documents on German Foreign Policy
(DGFP) D/IV, No. 372 cited in Michael Bloch, Ribbentrop (NY: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1992), 206.
8 Time July 25, 1938.
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