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

esettlement with Jewish relief and communal organizations aided by refugee experts.
Passport and identity papers would be provided, training facilities would be established
within Germany and concentration camp inmates would be released once emigration
began.
Schacht, on his return to Germany met with Hitler on January 2, 1939, and was
appointed special representative for Jewish emigration. The Foreign Office was ordered
to end its opposition to the IGCR and negotiations were transferred to Berlin. The IGCR
still faced the difficulties of finding places of final resettlement and private sources for
the short term costs of migration. Schacht’s discharge from his post, following an
argument with Hitler on January 20, temporarily ended any possibility of negotiations but
contact with Rublee was resumed by Helmuth Wohlthat, the director of Foreign Credits
Control Office. Negotiations foundered, however, on the issue of Jewish assets. Hitler
ultimately allowed resumption of talks which resulted in an economic arrangement
similar in many respects to the earlier Ha’avarah plan which coupled German exports
with sufficient assets to facilitate emigration to Palestine.
Although the Rublee-Schacht and Rublee-Wohlthat plans were viewed by some
as a form of blackmail that would lead to the impoverishment of German Jewry (and
perhaps similar demands and actions on the part of Poland, Rumanian and Hungary) the
IGCR feared outright refusal would convince the German Government that solution of
the Jewish Question could not be solved via international agreement but would require
more stringent solutions. 17 Under-Secretary Sumner Welles criticized the plan as a form
17 Eric Estorick, “The Evian Conference and the Intergovernmental Committee,” Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 203, Refugees (May, 1939): 139-141.
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