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

with a struggle with “cold, hardheaded, ruthless [and] determined men” acknowledged
that the British people cannot save Europe by acting like a “knight-errant rescuing
damsels in distress.” It was not the Nation’s role to act as “our brother’s keeper” or an
“amiable Don Quixote.” 65 Some Home Office officials suggested that a prime motivating
factor behind the Nazi anti-Semitic policies was to create a forced emigration dilemma
that would create for the United Kingdom a domestic “Jewish problem.” 66 Such
sentiments were, of course, applicable to all of the Western nations.
Home Office Assistant Under-Secretary Courtenay D.C. Robinson advised Sir
Neville Bland, British Minister to The Hague, that German annexation of the Austrian
Republic mandated that the Royal Government revisit its policies allowing the entry of
“aliens” possessing “Austrian passports. who may seek admission” into the United
Kingdom. These emigrants would in all probability, Robinson believed, have the status
of stateless refugees and consequently, it would become “impossible” to expel such
people once they gained admittance. In addition, despite the 1933 written assurances to
the Home Office from the leaders of the British Jewish community that all Jewish
refugees would be financially provided for by private sources and thus avoid going on the
public dole, by 1938 the scope of the new refugee crisis prevented Jewish relief
organizations from bearing the economic costs of resettlement and assimilation.
Therefore, Robinson concluded, the Government needed to institute stricter passport
controls that would severely curtail the numbers of foreigners admitted into the country.
65 Time, April 4, 1938, 18.
66 PRO FO 372/3282, T3517/3272/378, March 15, 1938, “Question of Admission to the United Kingdom
of Aliens holding Austrian Passports.” The Memorandum noted that “the latest information is such that
pressure is already intensified as a matter of deliberate policy, with the express purpose of creating a Jewish
refugee problem in this country and stimulating a Nazi reaction” cited in Romain, “The Anschluss,” 97.
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