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

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into Christian society. 39 Shlomo Katz described the <strong>Evian</strong> <strong>Conference</strong> as the “<strong>Jewish</strong><br />

Munich” in which the human rights <strong>of</strong> Jews as individuals and as a collective were<br />

sacrificed by the League <strong>of</strong> Nations and by the world’s democracies. It was the<br />

“weakness <strong>of</strong> public opinion,” he believed, that helped to pave the way for the ultimate<br />

Nazi policy for the “solution <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Jewish</strong> problem.” 40 <strong>The</strong> gains <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Jewish</strong><br />

Emancipation <strong>of</strong> the Nineteenth Century in Central Europe were reversed and German<br />

and Austrian Jews were cast adrift, subject to the whims and policies <strong>of</strong> an openly hostile<br />

government and ideology. David Cesarani and Sarah Kavanaugh argued that the failure<br />

<strong>of</strong> the American Administration to alter its immigration policies set <strong>of</strong>f a “chain reaction”<br />

in which the other nations either refused to liberalize or adopted a more restrictive policy<br />

on immigration. Thus, from the viewpoint <strong>of</strong> the stateless refugees it would have been<br />

better if the “conference had not been held at all.” 41<br />

Rafael Med<strong>of</strong>f observed that Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, in fact, had frequently and<br />

unsuccessfully implored FDR to publicly criticize the Reich and its anti-<strong>Jewish</strong> policies.<br />

Wise acknowledged, on October 18, 1933, that “we have had nothing but indifference<br />

and unconcern [from the Administration] up to this time.” James D. McDonald had<br />

expressed to the President during early 1933 that “it would be very desirable” if the Chief<br />

Executive engaged in “frank speaking” with Hitler. In response, Roosevelt claimed that<br />

“he had a plan in mind to appeal over the head <strong>of</strong> Hitler to the German people.” FDR<br />

also advised Henry Morgenthau, Jr. and the brother <strong>of</strong> the New York State Governor,<br />

39 Vital. A People Apart, 890-891.<br />

40 Katz, “Public Opinion,”105, 126.<br />

41 David Cesarani and Sarah Kavanaugh, Holocaust: Critical Concepts in Historical Studies, vol. 3, (NY:<br />

Routledge, 2004), 19.<br />

323

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