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

Chapter 3
Flight: “A Problem of Growing Gravity and Complexity”
Austrian refugees in Bolivia: “Visas! We began to live visas day and
night. When we were awake we are obsessed by visas. We talked
about them all the time. Exit visas. Transit visas. Entrance visas.
Where could we go? During the day, we tried to get the proper
documents, approvals, visas. At night, in bed, we tossed about and
dreamed about long lines, officials, visas.” 1
The world is closing in on the Jews as Fascism is triumphing over
democracy. The Jews as Jews seem powerless to do anything about it.
Only the voice of Secretary Hull has been lifted inviting the
governments to give the refugee problem immediate and practical
attention. 2
The goal of the first phase of Nazi anti-Jewish policy was to make Greater
Germany Jüdenrein or cleansed of Jews by means of forced emigration, the seizure of
their assets and property, the elimination of Jews from the workforce and by the use of
terror. 525,000 Jews resided primarily within the urban areas of Germany when Hitler
assumed the Chancellorship in January 1933 (one percent of the total population with
one-third of Jews living within Berlin) and two hundred thousand dwelled in Austria at
the time of the Anschluss. Seventy percent, or four hundred thousand Jews, resided
within municipal communities with half located within the ten largest German cities.
Four hundred thousand Jews (eighty percent) living within Germany held German
citizenship and the remainder were primarily of Polish origin; the majority born in
1 Leo Spitzer, Hotel Bolivia: The Culture of Memory in a Refugee from Nazism (NY: Hill and Wang,
1999), 35.
2 The Southern Israelite, April 29, 1938, 20.
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