JOURNAL the Association of Jewish Refugees
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
VOLUME 18 NO.6 JULY 2018 JOURNAL The Association of Jewish Refugees Looking back at SUMMER SUMMARY Evian This month’s issue contains a touching account about die Blinden as well as On 25 November 1936 Chaim Weizmann, testifying before an article on the work of the Claims the Peel Commission, declared that the Jews of Europe faced a Conference. We also have a great review of this year’s Summer Exhibition situation in which “the world is divided into places where they at the Royal Academy. cannot live and places where they cannot enter.” Meanwhile here at the AJR we’ve been busy organising numerous meetings and outings for our members – you can see some lovely photos from our recent trip to Norfolk on page 15. We hope it makes for good summer reading! AJR News ..................................................... 3 Die Blinden ................................................... 4 Yekkes in Israel ............................................. 5 Letters to the Editor ................................6 & 7 Review ......................................................... 8 Art Notes...................................................... 9 Looking for................................................. 10 Letter from Israel ........................................ 11 At your service: Claims Conference ....12 & 13 Around the AJR .......................................... 14 Cartoon in New York Times, 3 July 1938: ‘Will the Evian Conference guide him to freedom?’ Norfolk Broads Enjoyment .......................... 15 The Anti-Nazi Movies ........................16 & 17 During the last twenty years or so there histories of Nazism or the Holocaust and Obituaries .................................................. 18 has been an explosion of interest in the you will be lucky to find more than a few Adverts ....................................................... 19 subject of Jewish refugees during the passing references. Events & exhibitions ................................... 20 Nazi years. Historians have explored Nazi persecution and British and American They all agree on one thing, however. immigration policies, from Britain to The Evian Conference was, in the words AJR Team Shanghai and the Caribbean. Cultural of the French historian Raphael Delpard, Chief Executive Michael Newman critics have written about every aspect of “The Conference of Shame”. In the first Finance Director David Kaye the great exodus from German-speaking book devoted to the Evian Conference, Heads of Department central Europe, from writers and artists to published just a few months ago, Paul HR & Administration Karen Markham scientists and philosophers. The silence of R Bartrop writes, “the immediate results Social Services Sue Kurlander the 1950s and ‘60s has been truly broken. of the conference amounted to nothing Community & Volunteer Services Carol Hart of any lasting worth.” The policy of the AJR Journal There are still interesting gaps, however. western powers towards Jewish refugees Editor Jo Briggs This month marks the 80th anniversary from Germany and Austria was a scandal. Editorial Assistant Lilian Levy of the infamous Evian Conference in Western democracies largely closed their Contributing Editor David Herman Secretarial/Advertisements Karin Pereira July 1938. Look it up in the best general Continued on page 2 1 AJR Journal | July 2018 Looking back at Evian What followed at Evian was predictable. The only achievement of the Evian There was plenty of empty rhetoric and no Conference was the decision to create (cont.) action. The delegate from Belgium drew an Inter-Governmental Committee on doors to Jews and the Evian Conference attention to “her traditional reputation Refugees to negotiate with Germany was the worst moment of all. The only as a hospitable people and a country of an orderly exodus from the Reich. As people to cheer were the Nazis. Just two refuge,” while at the same time reminding Cesarani pointed out, “It had no funds months later, at the Nuremberg Rally, the conference that Belgium was “a small and no powers.” Norman Bentwich, Hitler jeered, “no help is given, but country with a very dense population.” who attended the conference as a morality is saved.” The Australian representative said “as representative of the Council for German we have no racial problem, we are not Jewry, observed that Evian spelt “naïve” How did it come to this? The story of the desirous of importing one.” Ireland said backwards. He was scathing about the Evian Conference is quickly told. Soon it could “make no real contribution.” democracies: “The more difficult the after the Anschluss, President Roosevelt Switzerland considered it “essential to task, the smaller their will to deal with it called for an international conference exercise very stringent control over the radically.” to address the growing refugee crisis in admission of any further foreigners.” central Europe. Four months later the And Peru was obliged to “fix limits to its The British, though, considered Evian representatives of thirty-two nations met enthusiasm.” a success. The demands of Poland and at the Hotel Royal in Evian-les-Bains, Romania for help in getting rid of their on the French shore of Lake Geneva, to Only two countries pledged any kind of Jews had been pushed to the sidelines. discuss the crisis. More than a hundred action. The Dominican Republic agreed The question of Palestine had been private refugee organisations were also to take some Jews, though by 1942 only kept off the conference agenda and the allowed to make submissions. 472 Jews had been admitted at a cost of British had not been forced into any new $3,000 each, a considerable sum at that commitments. In Germany meanwhile, There was little optimism in advance. SD time. Bolivia not only spoke of “streams of Alfred Rosenberg, head of the Nazi Waley, at the British Treasury, wrote in a Jewish emigration” “creating there new Party’s Foreign Policy Office, published memorandum, “I am afraid that the Evian centres of civilisation and progress” but his solution to the German-Jewish refugee Conference is bound to be somewhat of between 1938 and 1941 took more than problem: Madagascar. a fiasco. Few governments seem likely 20,000 Jewish refugees. to promise to take more refugees than For eighty years the Evian Conference they are doing at present, or to commit Only the delegate from Colombia has been a stain on the conscience of themselves to any definite number.” raised the question of principle: “Can a the West. It was not just empty rhetoric; State, without upsetting the base of our they did everything they could to avoid Waley was if anything over-optimistic. civilisation, and, indeed, of all civilisations, any meaningful actions for Jewish Even before the conference took place the arbitrarily withdraw nationality from a refugees in central Europe. Historians are British and Americans had agreed on a whole class of its citizens, thereby making unanimous. The best that can be said for number of points which made any positive them Stateless Persons who no country is the delegates is that they could not have outcome unlikely. The British insisted that compelled to receive on its territory?” anticipated what was going to happen the question of Jewish immigration to after 1941. As today’s refugee crisis Palestine must not be raised. An influx of How do we explain this reluctance deepens we should remember Evian and refugees, they feared, would cause chaos. everywhere to help Jewish refugees? ask what future historians will say about First, many countries were aware of the our politicians. The Americans, for their part, refused realities of the economic depression of to accept any interference with existing the 1930s. It was not a time for bold David Herman quota restrictions. In his book, Final gestures. Strong professional lobbies Solution, David Cesarani wrote, “the very resisted new competition for jobs. invitation to the conference stated that There was considerable anti-migrant participants would not be expected to sentiment in many countries, a fear THANK YOU UP NORTH admit more immigrants than their laws of being “swamped” by “aliens”. already admitted.” There was also widespread concern In May AJR enjoyed a wonderful about the possible expulsion of many event at the Manchester Jewish Neither Germany nor the Soviet Union thousands of destitute Jews from Poland Museum. Guests included AJR took part, the German government and Romania. Finally, the conference volunteers from Leeds, Liverpool, declaring Jewish emigrants to be an was careful not to upset Germany at Bradford, Ilkley, Gateshead internal matter. Fascist Italy and nearly all a time when international relations and of course Manchester, plus countries in central and east Europe were were becoming increasingly fraught. representatives from our partner not invited. The conference was to be “The British, French, and Americans agencies, such as JVN, The League of a talking shop for the British Dominions seem too anxious not to do anything Jewish Women, Manchester Jewish (Australia, Canada and New Zealand) and to offend Hitler, “wrote the American Rep Council and The Fed. a larger number of countries in Central and journalist William Shirer, who attended South America and it would be dominated the conference. “It’s an absurd situation. Guest speaker Andy Burnham, Mayor by the three great powers: America, Britain They want to appease the man who is of Greater Manchester, recognised and France. responsible for their problem.” 2 AJR Journal | July 2018 Welcome Royal