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

Ho responded that “I thought it only natural to feel compassion and to want to help.
From the standpoint of humanity, that is the way it should be.” The number of visas
granted by Ho remains a matter of speculation but by October 1938 1,900 visas had been
issued and by the time of the outbreak of war in September 1939 more than eighteen
thousand European Jewish refugees had immigrated to Shanghai. 98
Prior to the Anschluss many Americans in their private, professional and official
capacities condemned Nazi policies of persecution. The U.S. Ambassador to Berlin,
William E. Dodd, resigned from his position on December 7, 1937 and was replaced by
Hugh R. Wilson on January 7, 1938. On January 8 Dodd condemned the German record
of anti-Semitism, rearmament and violations of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. He
believed that it was the responsibility of American diplomats to remind the world of the
“significance of democratic civilization for which peoples have struggled since the
sixteenth century.” Speaking on January 13 Dodd denounced the tenets of Aryanism and
accused the Reich Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, of murdering “more personal enemies in five
years than Charles II of England did in twenty years” precipitating an official protest
from the German Ambassador to Washington, Dr. Hans Dieckhoff. During February the
Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America and the Universal Christian Council
for Life and Work held a dinner in New York City honoring Dodd. One of the speakers,
Dr. Ernst Wilhelm Meyer, who until May 1937 had been a career German diplomat and
98 Eric Saul, “Response to the Article by Joan R. Deman ‘A Rebuttal to the Claims Made by the
Organization Visas for Life’” available from
http://www.chgs.umn.edu/museum/exhibitions/rescuers/ericSaul.html; Internet; (Last update October 22,
2009); accessed March 19, 2010; “Feng Shan Ho and the Rescue of Austrian Jews” Visas for Life Project
available from http://isurvived.org/4Debates/Exhibit-RickshawORG/FengShanHo-bio-Eric.html ; Internet;
accessed March 19, 2010; “The Angel of Austria’s Jews” by Mark O’Neil South China Morning Post
available from http://journeyeast.tripod.com/angel_of_austria_s_jews.html ; Internet; accessed March 20,
2010.
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