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

and resettle the refugees but with the caveat that Palestine, rather than other locations
such as the former German African colonies, British Guiana or Alaska, would be the best
locale. 62 A variety of geographic regions around the world were proposed as potential
sites of resettlement, in some cases generating surveys and schemes that were limited in
scope and slow to develop. The Alaskan Plan, for example, was proposed by the Alaska
Development Committee in 1938 to create semi-autonomous Jewish colonies of
unspecified size but met local political and popular resistance. 63
David Wyman claimed that Roosevelt, during the critical years of 1938-1945,
displayed “a pattern of decreasing sensitivity towards the plight of the European Jews”
due to domestic and foreign priorities that were of greater significance to American
interests. 64 Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin has argued that FDR was
sympathetic to the situation of the German Jews but was unwilling to expend political
capital by confronting the anti-immigration and anti-Semitic sentiments of the American
public or powerful members of Congress. 65 The First Lady, Eleanor, noted in This I
Remember, “While I often felt strongly on various subjects, Franklin frequently refrained
from causes in which he believed, because of political realities.” 66
62 “Refugee Aid Plans Mapped by Taylor,” New York Times, November 26, 1938, 2.
63 Edelheit, History of Zionism, 502-507. Other proposed sites included: Angola, Argentina, Baja,
British Guiana, Ecuador, French Guiana, Madagascar, Kimberly in Australia, New Caledonia, New
Hebrides, Peru and Surinam.
64 Wyman, Paper Wall, vii-viii.
65 Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in
World War II (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 102.
66 Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975), 161.
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