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

were practicable under the “circumstances of the time”: locating sites for mass
resettlement of refugee Jews and constructive negotiations with the Reich that would
culminate in an orderly plan of emigration. Harsch concluded that the Conference “did
both.” 77 Leonard Dinnerstein noted that Roosevelt represented during the latter part of the
1930s the “only friend” of the Jewish people among the leaders of the world.
Unfortunately for the Jews, however, such friendship occurred during a time in which the
“most inhumane anti-Semitic episodes” in global history were occurring with
disconcerting and troubling regularity. The President always aware of his political
priorities was in “tune with public sentiments” and would avoid taking any pro-active
stance on immigration in the face of an “obstructionist Congress.” 78
Jeffrey Gurlock
believed the President analyzed the refugee issue in the “context” of domestic politics, an
arena which he understood and could potentially manipulate. He recognized that in the
setting of national economic distress the majority of the American public could not
understand nor support the admission of large numbers of refugees who potentially would
be competing for hearth, home and jobs. Selecting carefully the issues upon which he
was willing to expend political capital he regarded the question of Jewish refugees more
like “the fox than the lion… [settling] for a politics of gesture.” It was this slight of
symbolic hand that provided the “key to the mystery” of Evian in which the terms of the
invitation were “carefully hedged” ensuring the ultimate failure of the meeting. FDR’s
77 Joseph C. Harsch, At the Hinge of History: A Reporter’s Story (Athens, GA: University of Georgia
Press, 1993), 26.
78 Leonard Dinnerstein, Anti-Semitism in America (NY: Oxford University Press, 1994), 104.
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