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

Refugees (PACPR). 69 Although inclusive of a number of Jewish leaders the composition
of the membership embraced many who lacked a “particular commitment to the Jewish
cause.” 70
Hamilton Fish Armstrong, who had succeeded McDonald to the presidency of
the Foreign Policy Association, declined the chairmanship of the PACPR citing his
greater interest and commitment to “international relations than relief or philanthropy as
such.” 71 George Strausser Messersmith addressed the committee during its first full
session on May 16, 1938 and warned its members not to expect any concrete results from
either the Evian Conference or its creation, the Intergovernmental Committee for Political
Refugees from Germany. He presented his confidential sentiments that although
humanitarian rhetoric would be expressed the invited delegations and their respective
governments were not “approaching the problem with enthusiasm and very few with the
disposition to make sacrifices.” Their decision to attend the conference was motivated in
large part by a desire to avoid appearing as a bystander to Jewish persecution. Therefore,
it was to be expected that the attendees would merely be offering “lip service” to the idea
of rescue coupled with “unwillingness” to liberalize their respective immigration policies.
Likewise, the range of actions open to the United States was severely constrained by
American immigration law and the quota system. Messersmith hoped that the “liberal
69 This advisory panel was constituted by Henry Morgenthau, Bernard Baruch, Dr. Stephen S. Boise,
Rabbis Stephen Wise, Hamilton Fish Armstrong (editor of Foreign Affairs), Paul Baerwald (Chairman of
the American Joint Distribution Committee), the Rev. Samuel Calvert, Joseph P. Chamberlain, Basil
Harris, Louis Kennedy, the Most Reverend Joseph F. Rummel, James M. Speers and James G. McDonald
who would serve as chairman.
70 David Clay Large, And the World Closed Its Doors: The Story of One Family Abandoned to the
Holocaust (NY: Basic Books, 2003), 71.
71 Ibid., 71.
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