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The Florida Holocaust Museum: History, Heritage and Hope Permanent Exhibition

The World Confers

The Politics of Silence

The world responded to the Nazi's programs as Hitler hoped they would: No nation cared about the fate of Europe's Jews.  Even the United States turned away thousands of Jewish refugees, fearful of becoming involved in the conflict.

I don't think that anyone who didn't live through it can understand what I felt at Evian - a mixture of sorrow, rage, frustration, and horror.
     - Golda Meir, observer at Evian

Evian-les-Bains

Following the Anschluss, Nazi policies regarding forced emigration displaced more than 100,000 Jews from Austria alone.  It was increasingly clear that the world faced an international refugee problem on a grand scale.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the United States invited 32 nations to participate in a conference concerning emigration of the Jewish refugees.  In addition the representatives of 39 private relief agencies (21 of them Jewish) also attended the proceedings in Evian-les-Bains, France from July 6 - 15, 1938.

Nation after nation gave its reasons for not being able to accommodate any of the refugees.  Only Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic agreed to accept a small number of Jewish refugees in return for enormous sums of money.

This lack of action on the part of so many nations led to even more restrictive emigration laws in many other countries.  Poland, for example, revoked the citizenship of all Poles living abroad, in effect preventing their return.

Bermuda

As the news from Europe of atrocities against the Jewish Population grew more frequent and alarming, the United States and Great Britain agreed to hold a second conference in April 1943.  The Bermuda Conference was attended by government and professional representatives from both countries.  The inaccessible site was chosen in an attempt to discourage participation.

By prior agreement, the scope of discussion at the conference was limited.  The consensus was to downplay the Jewish nature of the refugee crisis and point out that many victimized groups were affected.  The Joint Emergency Committee for European Affairs submitted "A Program for the Rescue of Jews from Nazi Occupied Europe," which included a proposal for Britain to open Palestine for Jewish refugees.  It was not considered by the conference attendees.  In the end, no real progress was made to solve the crisis.

Myron C. Taylor, the United State's principal representative at Evian, stated that

The Bermuda Conference was wholly ineffective... and we knew it would be.


 

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  1. Myron Taylor at Evian
  2. Evian Conference Cartoon