In July 1938 the United States, Great Britain and thirty other
countries participated in a vital conference at Évian-les-Bains, France. The purpose of the conference was to discuss the persecution and possible emigration of the European Jews, specifically those caught under the anvil of Nazi atrocities in Germany and Austria.
There is no doubt that the Évian conference was a critical turning point in world history. The outcome of the conference set the stage for the attempted complete annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe. No other international conference in modern history has played such a profoundly significant role in world events and affected the fates of so many individuals.
In retrospect it is a simple matter to lay the blame for the Holocaust with Hitler; after all, it was he who sanctioned the 'Final Solution', but the question remains, could the Holocaust have been prevented, could six million lives have been saved if the delegates to that vital conference at Évian had shown more human compassion, some dignity and mercy? However, few did. America, the country which had organised the conference, and the thirty-one other participating countries, almost unanimously agreed that in light of their own immigration laws, which they would not alter to facilitate the need of the refugees, the Jewish problem was just too difficult to solve.
Yet the facts remain that at the time of the annexation of Austria in March 1938 the German and Austrian Jewish population amounted to only about 570,000 people — not the six or seven million who were later embroiled in the Holocaust. These numbers could easily have been assimilated into the thirty-two countries whose representatives, at Évian, called themselves the ‘Nations of Asylum’. If each of the thirty-two nations represented at Évian had allowed just eighteen thousand Jewish refugees into their countries, Hitler would have been forced to reconsider his plans for the 'Final Solution'.
Under mounting world concern, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Myron C. Taylor, a former president of the huge company U.S. Steel, as his special ambassador to Évian.
Myron C.Taylor, (left) the hugely successful U.S. businessman
who was appointed by President Roosevelt to head up
the American delegation to Évian.
(U.S. National Archives)
Thirty-nine refugee organisations including twenty Jewish groups were to give factual, firsthand evidence of the treatment then being meted out to the Jews under German control. Theirs was a simple cry in the darkness: ‘Help us to get out,’ they told the delegations, ‘or we shall not survive.’
Unfortunately, with only a few exceptions, European Jews were not welcome anywhere in the world. Two thousand years of anti-Semitism could not simply disappear. Many countries were taking limited numbers of refugees but the only country where Jews could find a true welcome was in Palestine, and there, only by the Jewish community.
At the time Palestine was controlled by the British under a League of Nations mandate and Britain was desperately trying to control a difficult political and religious situation, the conflict between the Jews and the Arabs that was about to erupt in the Middle East.
Thirteen weeks prior to the conference at Évian, Hitler’s troops had marched into Austria and within days of occupying Vienna the capital was in the grip of Nazi terror. Gangs of storm-troopers roamed through the streets searching for Jews to beat up, humiliate and murder. All human rights for Jews were withdrawn. Jewish teachers were dismissed, Jewish doctors were allowed to treat only Jews. Jews were banned from working in the areas of entertainment, journalism, law, or on the stock exchange. Jewish civil servants were immediately dismissed. Shops carried signs in their windows stating: ‘No Jews allowed inside.’ It was the European Apartheid. Jewish families found it difficult to purchase even the simplest necessities of life: meat, bread, and vegetables.
After the German annexation of Austria, a further half million Jews were added to the already tragic lists of those under Nazi persecution. Finding relief for these people was of mounting concern world-wide.
Another problem facing the democratic nations was the very strong possibility that many countries would be unwilling to open their doors to the Jews, fearing that if they did so the anti-Semitic governments would quickly unload their Jewish populations entirely onto the recipient countries.
By early May 1938 it had been decided in the White House to open the conference at the Hotel Royale at Évian on Wednesday 6 July, 1938.
Political, economic and social problems affecting the immigration laws of various nations were now becoming more obvious. Countries to which invitations had been sent were already scrambling to consolidate, and usually tighten, their own laws and entry requirements. An unfortunate action, especially in South America which had the potential to allow very large numbers of refugees to enter the various countries.
The nine-day Évian conference began with the French delegate welcoming almost two hundred representatives, journalists and observers. Conference delegates arrived in somewhat belligerent and pessimistic moods. They
were mostly concerned that they were not to be bullied by the major powers into allowing unacceptable numbers of refugees into their countries.
Thirty-nine representatives of the various refugee organisations were called upon to make their presentations. One would normally assume that such detailed presentations on such a vital subject concerning the fate of millions of people would have been scheduled to be heard over at least a week, possibly two weeks. However, each representative was given just ten minutes in which to make his or her claims. As that long afternoon wore on the time allowed to the refugee organisations was cut by half. The World Jewish Congress, representing about seven million Jews, was given just five minutes, and the delegation specifically representing German Jews was given no time at all. They were told simply to provide a written submission which would be, ‘...considered in due course’.
U.S. ambassador, Myron C. Taylor, rose for his first address. The auditorium was hushed, there was an expectant silence as the delegates, the press and the world waited to learn what the U.S. would offer. Speculation was rife that the U.S. would set a high quota of Jewish immigrants from Germany. Many, in fact, believed that the U.S. would announce they were prepared to take up to 600,000 refugees. Taylor’s speech began with details of the need for fast action on behalf of the Jewish refugees but later continued:
'You will have noted that my Government’s invitation to this meeting stated specifically that whatever action was recommended here should take place within the framework of the existing laws and practices of the participating Governments. … The American Government has taken steps to consolidate both the German and the former Austrian quota so that now a total of 27,370 immigrants may enter the United States on the German quota in one year.'
In effect Taylor was stating that America’s immigration quota system could not be changed to any great degree in order to accommodate the Jewish problem. He acknowledged that a full quota of German and Austrian immigrants — amounting to slightly more than 27,000 people — would be accepted for the following year. However, he failed to point out that a large percentage of these immigrants would be comprised of Christians.
The Jewish representatives at Évian were stunned into silence at the U.S. ambassador’s words. The country that had promised so much was now offering virtually nothing beyond those measures already in place ... and Taylor’s proposals were to set the example for the tragic series of events that followed.
Lord Winterton, the British delegate, was equally as intransigent. Speaking after Taylor, he stated his country was willing to allow certain numbers of refugees into the United Kingdom for the purposes of training or retraining, but the specific reason for this was to enable them to be accepted and to assimilate more readily in another country and not to settle permanently in Britain. Winterton added that his government was primarily concerned with assimilating those Jews who were already in the country before consideration could be given to allowing any more to enter. He claimed that consideration was being given to the introduction of refugees into the country’s dominions, but stated that many of these dominions were already overcrowded or were unsuitable for European settlement because of political considerations or climates.
Henri Berenger, the French ambassador, was next to speak at the Évian conference. He told the delegates that many millions of francs had already been expended on hundreds of thousands of refugees and that the country had, in his words, ‘...already reached the extreme point of saturation as regards admission of refugees’.
One by one the representatives from country after country rose to speak at Évian, all with similar disappointing statements.
Over the following days more of the Évian delegates rose to explain why their respective countries could take no more Jewish refugees. The Swiss representative, Dr Heinrich Rothmund, director of the police division at the Federal Department of Justice and Police, stated that the Swiss government had been forced to introduce stringent controls over the entry of foreigners. Switzerland was never to alter its policy concerning Jewish refugees. It was not until 1997 that any official apology was made concerning the World War Two refugee problem. In March 1997 the Swiss foreign minister, Flavio Cotti, while attending a formal dinner in New York, apologised for Switzerland’s lack of courage towards the refugees stating that his country’s policy had been, as he said, ‘inexcusably wrong’. He added that there had been some, ‘...very dark moments,’ in Switzerland’s history during the 1930s and 1940s.
As the conference ground to its predictable close it became patently obvious to the representative countries — and particularly obvious to Adolf Hitler — that the world generally had little time for the Jews. The official resolution of the conference — which was passed unanimously — stated that the delegates of the ‘Nations of Asylum’ were not willing to undertake any obligations towards financing involuntary immigration.
In effect this meant that apart from the existing strict immigration quotas those Jews who were accepted would have to finance their own immigration costs and have sufficient money for support in the adopted country. On the surface this seems a fair and reasonable resolution, but it had clearly been explained to the delegates beforehand that Hitler had passed a law preventing Jews from leaving Germany with any of their wealth. They were permitted to take only ten Reichmarks, or about seven dollars.
Meanwhile, the pogrom in Europe continued unabated. On 6 July, 1938, world newspapers were reporting that
some twelve thousand Jews had succeeded in escaping from Nazi Austria. The Telegraph of London stated: ‘Jews who, after having been released from prison, have been told to quit Austria by a certain date in July or be re-arrested, have sought visas in vain. They have asked in despair, ‘Where can we go?’ and were told, ‘Well, the road to the Danube is open.’
Indeed, suicide, as the notorious Danube remark suggested, was certainly an option that many of the Jews took. On 7 July the press reported: ‘The correspondent of the Telegraph at Vienna says that evidence abundantly confirms the reports that eight hundred Jews have attempted to commit suicide in the past few days. The majority of the eight hundred succeeded, and as a result rabbis have been so busy at funerals that they were occupied after sunset.’
The Évian conference closed on 15 July, 1938, with the participating governments deciding to establish a continuing body that was to set up a permanent committee in London. By 14 July, well known lawyer George Rublee, a personal friend of President Roosevelt and a man who has been described as one of the most outstanding lawyers in the United States with wide experience in international law had agreed to be appointed as director of the permanent committee. However, in the end, this committee too would be unable to ameliorate the plight of the massively persecuted German and Austrian Jews.
And thus the Évian conference ended. Nothing concrete had come from the many days spent in intense discussion. What became obviously clear to all the delegates was the fact that the represented nations were unwilling to do anything more than advance token gestures in their endeavours to solve the refugee problem.
The situation was further exacerbated by the German policy of cramming a large number of Jewish people onto German expulsion ships and sending them uninvited to various ports in South America, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean.
Meanwhile, as the politicians shuffled and procrastinated, the Holocaust grew in horrific momentum. Over the following few days, four months after the Évian conference, the infamous Kristallnacht — the Night of Broken Glass, exploded in a mindless rampage of anti-Semitic fury throughout Germany and Austria. This was a carefully orchestrated programme of destruction that raged through almost every city, town and village in those countries. 267 synagogues and congregational buildings were burnt to the ground. Thousands of Jewish shops had their front windows broken; Jews were evicted from their homes and thrown from trams and moving trains. Thirty thousand Jewish men were arrested and sent to the concentrations camps. Women and children were harnessed to wagons and whipped through the streets like beasts of burden.
In Berlin, Hitler viewed the resolution of the Évian conference with considerable contempt. He had been hoping that the 'Nations of Asylum' would take the Jewish problem off his agenda. Now, however, he believed that he was left with little alternative. Jews were not welcome anywhere in the world, and so there was only one solution.
Extermination!
Golda Meir, future Prime Minister of Israel was later to state, ‘After the conference at Évian-les-Bains, it became chillingly clear that the Jewish people were entirely on their own.’
Following the Évian conference a leading German publication clearly stated that the reaction of the delegates at the conference only served to justify Germany’s policy against Jewry. A damning article also appeared in the Das Schwarze Korps (The Black Corps) the official newspaper of the SS, which stated:
'Because it is necessary, because we no longer hear the world screeching, and because, after all, no power on earth can hinder us, we will now bring the Jewish question to its totalitarian solution. The result will be the actual and definite end of Jewry in Germany and its complete extermination.’
Today the sequence of events that led up to the Holocaust, and the Holocaust itself, are issues that are still steeped in controversy and guilt. Some revisionist style historians are proclaiming that the Holocaust, in fact, never took place, but such views are obscene, grossly inaccurate and profoundly dangerous. The people of Germany have lived with the guilt of the Holocaust for the past seventy years or so and there is a general swell of opinion that perhaps it is time to end what many term as, ‘...the cult of past guilt’.
It is, of course, logical and right that the sins of the fathers and grandfathers should not be placed on the shoulders of new generations. Guilt should not be hereditary. Yet it is equally right that those monstrous crimes are never forgotten. History has judged Nazi Germany for the incredible evil that it perpetrated on the world in general and the Jews in particular, and no-one, especially the far right or individuals who propound an indecent revisionist style of history can erase the obscenity of the Holocaust from the collective memory of the peoples of the world.
(Copyright Tony Matthews, 2020)
Unfortunately, with only a few exceptions, European Jews were not welcome anywhere in the world. Two thousand years of anti-Semitism could not simply disappear. Many countries were taking limited numbers of refugees but the only country where Jews could find a true welcome was in Palestine, and there, only by the Jewish community.
At the time Palestine was controlled by the British under a League of Nations mandate and Britain was desperately trying to control a difficult political and religious situation, the conflict between the Jews and the Arabs that was about to erupt in the Middle East.
Thirteen weeks prior to the conference at Évian, Hitler’s troops had marched into Austria and within days of occupying Vienna the capital was in the grip of Nazi terror. Gangs of storm-troopers roamed through the streets searching for Jews to beat up, humiliate and murder. All human rights for Jews were withdrawn. Jewish teachers were dismissed, Jewish doctors were allowed to treat only Jews. Jews were banned from working in the areas of entertainment, journalism, law, or on the stock exchange. Jewish civil servants were immediately dismissed. Shops carried signs in their windows stating: ‘No Jews allowed inside.’ It was the European Apartheid. Jewish families found it difficult to purchase even the simplest necessities of life: meat, bread, and vegetables.
After the German annexation of Austria, a further half million Jews were added to the already tragic lists of those under Nazi persecution. Finding relief for these people was of mounting concern world-wide.
Another problem facing the democratic nations was the very strong possibility that many countries would be unwilling to open their doors to the Jews, fearing that if they did so the anti-Semitic governments would quickly unload their Jewish populations entirely onto the recipient countries.
By early May 1938 it had been decided in the White House to open the conference at the Hotel Royale at Évian on Wednesday 6 July, 1938.
Political, economic and social problems affecting the immigration laws of various nations were now becoming more obvious. Countries to which invitations had been sent were already scrambling to consolidate, and usually tighten, their own laws and entry requirements. An unfortunate action, especially in South America which had the potential to allow very large numbers of refugees to enter the various countries.
The nine-day Évian conference began with the French delegate welcoming almost two hundred representatives, journalists and observers. Conference delegates arrived in somewhat belligerent and pessimistic moods. They
were mostly concerned that they were not to be bullied by the major powers into allowing unacceptable numbers of refugees into their countries.
Thirty-nine representatives of the various refugee organisations were called upon to make their presentations. One would normally assume that such detailed presentations on such a vital subject concerning the fate of millions of people would have been scheduled to be heard over at least a week, possibly two weeks. However, each representative was given just ten minutes in which to make his or her claims. As that long afternoon wore on the time allowed to the refugee organisations was cut by half. The World Jewish Congress, representing about seven million Jews, was given just five minutes, and the delegation specifically representing German Jews was given no time at all. They were told simply to provide a written submission which would be, ‘...considered in due course’.
U.S. ambassador, Myron C. Taylor, rose for his first address. The auditorium was hushed, there was an expectant silence as the delegates, the press and the world waited to learn what the U.S. would offer. Speculation was rife that the U.S. would set a high quota of Jewish immigrants from Germany. Many, in fact, believed that the U.S. would announce they were prepared to take up to 600,000 refugees. Taylor’s speech began with details of the need for fast action on behalf of the Jewish refugees but later continued:
'You will have noted that my Government’s invitation to this meeting stated specifically that whatever action was recommended here should take place within the framework of the existing laws and practices of the participating Governments. … The American Government has taken steps to consolidate both the German and the former Austrian quota so that now a total of 27,370 immigrants may enter the United States on the German quota in one year.'
In effect Taylor was stating that America’s immigration quota system could not be changed to any great degree in order to accommodate the Jewish problem. He acknowledged that a full quota of German and Austrian immigrants — amounting to slightly more than 27,000 people — would be accepted for the following year. However, he failed to point out that a large percentage of these immigrants would be comprised of Christians.
The Jewish representatives at Évian were stunned into silence at the U.S. ambassador’s words. The country that had promised so much was now offering virtually nothing beyond those measures already in place ... and Taylor’s proposals were to set the example for the tragic series of events that followed.
Lord Winterton, the British delegate, was equally as intransigent. Speaking after Taylor, he stated his country was willing to allow certain numbers of refugees into the United Kingdom for the purposes of training or retraining, but the specific reason for this was to enable them to be accepted and to assimilate more readily in another country and not to settle permanently in Britain. Winterton added that his government was primarily concerned with assimilating those Jews who were already in the country before consideration could be given to allowing any more to enter. He claimed that consideration was being given to the introduction of refugees into the country’s dominions, but stated that many of these dominions were already overcrowded or were unsuitable for European settlement because of political considerations or climates.
Henri Berenger, the French ambassador, was next to speak at the Évian conference. He told the delegates that many millions of francs had already been expended on hundreds of thousands of refugees and that the country had, in his words, ‘...already reached the extreme point of saturation as regards admission of refugees’.
One by one the representatives from country after country rose to speak at Évian, all with similar disappointing statements.
Over the following days more of the Évian delegates rose to explain why their respective countries could take no more Jewish refugees. The Swiss representative, Dr Heinrich Rothmund, director of the police division at the Federal Department of Justice and Police, stated that the Swiss government had been forced to introduce stringent controls over the entry of foreigners. Switzerland was never to alter its policy concerning Jewish refugees. It was not until 1997 that any official apology was made concerning the World War Two refugee problem. In March 1997 the Swiss foreign minister, Flavio Cotti, while attending a formal dinner in New York, apologised for Switzerland’s lack of courage towards the refugees stating that his country’s policy had been, as he said, ‘inexcusably wrong’. He added that there had been some, ‘...very dark moments,’ in Switzerland’s history during the 1930s and 1940s.
As the conference ground to its predictable close it became patently obvious to the representative countries — and particularly obvious to Adolf Hitler — that the world generally had little time for the Jews. The official resolution of the conference — which was passed unanimously — stated that the delegates of the ‘Nations of Asylum’ were not willing to undertake any obligations towards financing involuntary immigration.
In effect this meant that apart from the existing strict immigration quotas those Jews who were accepted would have to finance their own immigration costs and have sufficient money for support in the adopted country. On the surface this seems a fair and reasonable resolution, but it had clearly been explained to the delegates beforehand that Hitler had passed a law preventing Jews from leaving Germany with any of their wealth. They were permitted to take only ten Reichmarks, or about seven dollars.
Meanwhile, the pogrom in Europe continued unabated. On 6 July, 1938, world newspapers were reporting that
some twelve thousand Jews had succeeded in escaping from Nazi Austria. The Telegraph of London stated: ‘Jews who, after having been released from prison, have been told to quit Austria by a certain date in July or be re-arrested, have sought visas in vain. They have asked in despair, ‘Where can we go?’ and were told, ‘Well, the road to the Danube is open.’
Indeed, suicide, as the notorious Danube remark suggested, was certainly an option that many of the Jews took. On 7 July the press reported: ‘The correspondent of the Telegraph at Vienna says that evidence abundantly confirms the reports that eight hundred Jews have attempted to commit suicide in the past few days. The majority of the eight hundred succeeded, and as a result rabbis have been so busy at funerals that they were occupied after sunset.’
The Évian conference closed on 15 July, 1938, with the participating governments deciding to establish a continuing body that was to set up a permanent committee in London. By 14 July, well known lawyer George Rublee, a personal friend of President Roosevelt and a man who has been described as one of the most outstanding lawyers in the United States with wide experience in international law had agreed to be appointed as director of the permanent committee. However, in the end, this committee too would be unable to ameliorate the plight of the massively persecuted German and Austrian Jews.
And thus the Évian conference ended. Nothing concrete had come from the many days spent in intense discussion. What became obviously clear to all the delegates was the fact that the represented nations were unwilling to do anything more than advance token gestures in their endeavours to solve the refugee problem.
The situation was further exacerbated by the German policy of cramming a large number of Jewish people onto German expulsion ships and sending them uninvited to various ports in South America, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean.
Meanwhile, as the politicians shuffled and procrastinated, the Holocaust grew in horrific momentum. Over the following few days, four months after the Évian conference, the infamous Kristallnacht — the Night of Broken Glass, exploded in a mindless rampage of anti-Semitic fury throughout Germany and Austria. This was a carefully orchestrated programme of destruction that raged through almost every city, town and village in those countries. 267 synagogues and congregational buildings were burnt to the ground. Thousands of Jewish shops had their front windows broken; Jews were evicted from their homes and thrown from trams and moving trains. Thirty thousand Jewish men were arrested and sent to the concentrations camps. Women and children were harnessed to wagons and whipped through the streets like beasts of burden.
In Berlin, Hitler viewed the resolution of the Évian conference with considerable contempt. He had been hoping that the 'Nations of Asylum' would take the Jewish problem off his agenda. Now, however, he believed that he was left with little alternative. Jews were not welcome anywhere in the world, and so there was only one solution.
Extermination!
Golda Meir, future Prime Minister of Israel was later to state, ‘After the conference at Évian-les-Bains, it became chillingly clear that the Jewish people were entirely on their own.’
Following the Évian conference a leading German publication clearly stated that the reaction of the delegates at the conference only served to justify Germany’s policy against Jewry. A damning article also appeared in the Das Schwarze Korps (The Black Corps) the official newspaper of the SS, which stated:
'Because it is necessary, because we no longer hear the world screeching, and because, after all, no power on earth can hinder us, we will now bring the Jewish question to its totalitarian solution. The result will be the actual and definite end of Jewry in Germany and its complete extermination.’
Today the sequence of events that led up to the Holocaust, and the Holocaust itself, are issues that are still steeped in controversy and guilt. Some revisionist style historians are proclaiming that the Holocaust, in fact, never took place, but such views are obscene, grossly inaccurate and profoundly dangerous. The people of Germany have lived with the guilt of the Holocaust for the past seventy years or so and there is a general swell of opinion that perhaps it is time to end what many term as, ‘...the cult of past guilt’.
It is, of course, logical and right that the sins of the fathers and grandfathers should not be placed on the shoulders of new generations. Guilt should not be hereditary. Yet it is equally right that those monstrous crimes are never forgotten. History has judged Nazi Germany for the incredible evil that it perpetrated on the world in general and the Jews in particular, and no-one, especially the far right or individuals who propound an indecent revisionist style of history can erase the obscenity of the Holocaust from the collective memory of the peoples of the world.
(Copyright Tony Matthews, 2020)
The Hotel Royale at Évian where the 1938 conference took place.
(U.S. National Archives)
Dr Chaim Weizmann president of the World Zionist Organisation and head of the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
He pleaded with the delegates to Évian to save the persecuted Jews of Europe, but no one was listening.
(U.S. National Archives).