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

nations, and, recognizing that he lacked the ability to order an increase in the immigration
quotas, “constantly [sought] havens for refugees in other countries.” 86
Jonathan Alter concluded that FDR was “not entirely negligent” in the intensity
of his efforts to aid European Jews. An isolationist and restrictionist public limited
Roosevelt's options but he did sound the clarion of warning about the Nazi threat early on
and “sponsored international conferences on refugees (Evian 1938 and the even more
ineffectual Bermuda Conference of 1943). 87 Frank Caestecker and Bob Moore regarded
the American effort as a historic “landmark” in the search for a workable policy for
international refugees. The Evian Conference marked the first attempt of the United
States Government to formulate and lead refugee policies outside the efforts of the
ineffectual League and its High Commissioner for Refugees. Despite its ultimate failure
in identifying sites of resettlement and of concluding successful negotiations with the
German Government over the issue of funding these authors regarded the creation of the
Intergovernmental Committee for Political Refugees as the “only concrete result” of the
Conference. 88
Mark Rozell and William D. Pederson concluded that the President’s success in
treading the minefield of politics and achieving his desired goals was due to a “measure
86 William J. vanden Heuvel, “America and the Holocaust” available from
http://www.feri.org/common/news/details.cfm?QID=826&clientid=11005; Internet; accessed April 20,
2008.
87 Jonathan Alter, The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope (NY: Simon &
Schuster, 2008), 333-334.
88 Frank Caestecker and Bob Moore, Refugees from Nazi Germany and the Liberal European States
(Oxford: Berghahn, 2010), 35.
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