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

those who might quite easily slip in—drug traffickers, white slave trade
traffickers, people with criminal records. 80
C.B. McAlpine and others feared that the admission of sizeable numbers of
Jewish refugees would create a domestic Jewish Question and its attendant risk of anti-
Semitic hostility. The United Kingdom had “benefited greatly” by the admission of
talented and resourceful Jews but such progress “may be too dearly bought at the price”
of unbridled immigration. 81 Similar concerns were presented in the press. The Daily
Express warned that increased Austrian and German Jewish immigration would foster
home grown anti-Semitism and garner support for the “extreme left.” A liberal admission
policy could also prompt the Eastern European countries of Poland, Rumania and
Hungary to forcibly expel their own Jewish population. Would Britain, they asked, be
obligated to “admit them too? Because we DON’T want anti-Jewish uproar we DO”
insist upon the application of “common sense in not admitting all applicants.” 82
Home Secretary Samuel Hoare acknowledged that Britain had a long standing
policy of granting sanctuary to victims of political, racial and political persecution but
concerns about the domestic economy and unemployment would, by necessity, temper
such a compassionate policy. He warned that while he was willing to be supportive in
aiding refugees “there was a good deal of feeling growing up in this country—a feeling
which was reflected in Parliament—against the admission of Jews to British territory.”
80 Ibid., 96.
81 C.B. McAlpine memorandum, March 1, 1938, PRO HO 213/94 cited in Romain, “The Anschluss,” 96-
97.
82 Ari Joshua Sherman, Island Refuge, Britain and the Refugees from the Third Reich, 1933-1939
(London: Elek Book Limited, 1973), 94.
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