During the summer of 1938, with an urgent situation facing Jews in lands under control of the Nazi regime, 32 nations gathered in Evian, France, to find a solution to the Jewish refugee crisis.
German, Austrian, and Czech Jewry were desperate to leave, but few nations would accept them beyond their meager quotas.
At Evian, nothing was resolved as delegate after delegate, on behalf of their respective nations, refused to expand their quotas. Golda Meir (then Meyerson) the representative of the Jewish Agency at the time, who attended the conference said, “nothing was accomplished at Evian except phraseology.”
At a press conference, she stated, “Before I die, my people should not need expressions of sympathy anymore.” London’s Jewish Chronicle predicted that the Evian Conference, “will be numbered among the many conferences whose name is failure.”
The horrors of Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) November 9, 1938, exacerbated the German Jewish refugee crisis as Nazi hordes swept over Jewish communities in Germany, inflicting destruction and terror, removing any doubt that the hour of German Jewry’s demise was near.Frankfurt am Main Synagogue burning during Kristallnacht (credit: CENTER FOR JEWISH HISTORY/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)
Nearly 100 Jews were murdered and 30,000 were sent to concentration camps.
Five hundred synagogues were burnt down and over 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed.
Over 200,000 German Jews had not yet left and 200,000 Jews of Austria were under German occupation, which was seized and occupied by the Nazis after the Anchluss (unification) on March 15 that year.
In addition, the Jews of Sudetenland, handed over to Germany in the aftermath of the Munich Agreement, were then under Nazi control.
Exactly, one year later, on March 15, 1939, the Germans seized the rest of Czechoslovakia.
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Jews cry for help
Just six weeks before the horrors of Kristallnacht, following the ill-fated Munich deal signed with Hitler, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain had triumphantly proclaimed “peace in our time” One week later, a full-page advertisement in the Jewish Chronicle appeal for German Jewry simply stated, “HELP! Before it is too late.”
The British did react with a gesture. The Kindertransport presented to the British Parliament on November 15, 1938, allowed for 10,000 German and Austrian Jewish children to be brought into Great Britain.
The first train left on December 10, 1938 with 600 children.
THE HORRORS of Kristallnacht shocked the world and signaled the extreme dangers posed by the Nazi regime to the Jews and all humanity.
After that night, known then as “Black Thursday,” many Americans realized that along with the Jews, all Western civilization was in danger.
One newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer noted that “The Jews are not the sole sufferers. This is a pogrom against Christian civilization itself. Decent world opinion and civilized governments cannot remain indifferent or silent.”
United States president Franklin Delano Roosevelt did extend the visas for 12,000-15,000 German Jewish refugees who were already in the United States as visitors but would not change US immigration policies.
At a White House Press conference, Roosevelt expressed shock at the news of the pogrom, “I myself could scarcely believe that such things could occur in a 20th-century civilization.” When asked if immigration restrictions would be relaxed, he responded, “This is not in contemplation. We have a quota system.”
Roosevelt’s position mirrored the views of most Americans. Various opinion polls at the time suggested opposition by most Americans to enlarge immigration quotas for German Jews.
There was fear of immigrants taking jobs, and a wave of isolationism had spread over America in the aftermath of World War I. Also, years of demagoguery and antisemitic hate-mongering by the likes of Father Charles Coughlin had made an impact.
An unwillingness to take action
There was revulsion to Nazi violence, but a continued unwillingness to respond meaningfully.
Nonetheless, president Roosevelt could have taken action. Economic sanctions could have been imposed on Germany.
Refugees could have been permitted to settle temporarily in a US territory such as the Philippines or the Virgin Islands.
Jewish organizations did not protest. There were no rallies, no protests, no significant effort mounted to call for refuge. Influential leader of the American Jewish Committee, Samuel Rosenmann stated that bringing in refugees “would create a Jewish crisis in the USA.” Some members of Congress sought action. The Wagner-Rogers Bill proposed admitting 20,000 German Jewish children under the age of 14, but it was rejected by Congress in February 1939. It never came to a vote.
According to Laura Delano Houghteling, the wife of the commissioner of immigration, and a cousin of FDR, the problem with the Wagner-Rogers Bill was that “Twenty thousand charming children would all soon grow into 20,000 ugly adults.”
One nation offered sanctuary: the Dominican Republic under Rafael Trujillo. Dominican law number 48 proposed on December 23, 1938, agreed to accept 100,000 Jewish refugees on their Caribbean island nation, but they were pressured by none other than the US State Department to rescind their offer.
WHAT ABOUT refuge in the Land of Israel and the commitments made by the British Balfour Declaration in 1917, and the League of Nations San Remo Conference in 1920, to facilitate the creation of a Jewish State?
On May 17, 1939, the British Government caving in to Arab pressure and Arab terror, issued the MacDonald White Paper which limited total Jewish immigration to Palestine for the next five years to 75,000, negating the prior promises of Jewish statehood.
The Jewish Agency responded despondently stating, “It is the darkest hour of Jewish history that the British government proposes to deprive the Jews of their last hope and to close the road back to their Homeland.”
Throughout the 1930s, nations of the world were far too tolerant of Nazism and reluctant to take any action to ameliorate the sufferings of Jewry, not coming to terms with the emerging Nazi threat that would soon endanger them as well.
In today’s times, Western nations have been far too tolerant of the forces of radical Islam which includes the ruling regime in Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terror groups. They threaten Israel – and the West as well.
Those who spoke out against the rise of Nazism in the 1930s were often labeled “warmongers.” Today, those who cite the threats posed by radical Islam often face the same labels and similar criticisms.
After Kristallnacht, some members of the Nazi regime openly called for the genocide of the Jews. In today’s times, the Iranian regime and its supporters call for the destruction of Israel.
Somehow, then and now, this rhetoric is deemed by too many to be acceptable.
The writer is the author of The Impact of World War One on the Jewish People, released by Urim Publications. He lives in Efrat.
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Publish date : 2024-11-04 11:45:00
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