'Nobody wants them' claimed the
German newspaper Völkischer Beobachter after the Evian Conference in July 1938
and Hitler gloated, saying, 'It is a shameful spectacle to see how the whole
democratic world is oozing sympathy for the poor tormented Jewish people, but
remains hard hearted and obdurate when it comes to helping them…..'1
After the annexation of Austria,
and the Evian Conference, Hitler seemed to throw caution to the winds while the
world stood by and allowed it to happen.
As Martin Gilbert comments, "It
was a neutral stance, not a hostile one, but this neutral stance was to cost a
multitude of lives."2 Murders,
killings, torture and forced labour in concentration camps continued after
Evian. In October Hitler marched into the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and
four months after the Conference Kristallnacht, or 'Night of the Broken Glass'
took place when thousands of Jewish shops and businesses were destroyed and
many people arrested and killed. Although
protest was again made in many parts of the world, the appeasement of Hitler
and governments' own agendas were paramount over helping the Jews. Humanitarian considerations were sacrificed
to self-interest and after war was declared, the allies' main thought was that
of victory and the refugee problem was sidelined.
After war against the Nazis was eventually declared Hitler's
'Final Solution' to the Jewish problem resulted in the loss of around six
million Jewish lives in the Holocaust.
Hitler's words to Major Hell in
1922 were, "Once the hatred and the battle against the Jews are really stirred
up, their resistance will inevitably break down in short order. They cannot protect themselves and no one
will stand forth as their defenders." became ominously true. The Jews were unable to protect themselves
as their leaders in various countries of the world were afraid to speak up too
loudly for the fear of stirring up an anti-Semitic backlash. Governments,
whither with or without foundation, were also afraid that refugees would be
unwelcome at a time of unemployment, as, although the public were sympathetic
to their cause, there was a general feeling of alarm in many countries that
immigrants would "take local jobs."
As has been shown there was also
an element of anti-Semitism among government ministers and officials at the
highest level. Although they did not condone Hitler's deportations, killings
and atrocities against Jews, they did not want to offend the Reich government.
For example, at Evian the words 'Jew' and 'Germany' were never used. Von Ribbentrop, now Germany's Foreign
Minister, had also threatened to retaliate against German Jewry if anti-German
propaganda was made at the conference.3 Presidents and Prime Ministers were
constrained by and accountable to Congress or Parliaments and their
administrations and unwilling to take a stand against them. Some elements of
the media also played a role in stirring up anti-Jewish feeling.
Although it was known that Jews
were being put into concentration camps, it could never have been envisaged in
1938 at the time of the Evian Conference that six million Jewish men, women and
children would be horribly murdered, experimented on, tortured and suffer the
worst atrocities that human beings could perpetrate in their evil and warped
minds. This however cannot excuse the
lack of willingness of fairly prosperous and democratic countries to help these
refugees whom they knew were in desperate need. Although not always an easy
task, if there had been the will, attempts could have been made by Governments
to try to bring public and press opinion onto the side of the refugees and
assuring native populations regarding jobs and the erroneous belief that Jews
did not assimilate into their country of refuge. Although Jewish people had their own kosher food, religious laws,
customs and festivals, they obeyed the laws of their country of adoption. They did not demand special treatment or
legal exemptions for their religion but tried to live quietly and peacefully in
spite of false accusations made against
them, persecution and anti-Semitism.
Much was made of the fact that Jews were an urban people who would not
do well working in lands where agriculture was the main industry but
Palestinian Jews proved this to be a false assertion as they had transformed
desert land into fertile and vast crop growing areas. In fact Lord Winterton
congratulated the Palestinian Jewish agriculturalists for their excellent work.4 Like every other group of people, some
Jews could work successfully on the land while others were unsuitable for such
work.
Prime Minister, Mackenzie King,
of Canada, did little, as he did not want to upset the province of Quebec but
the anti-Semitic views of Quebec should not have influenced or shaped Government
policy for the whole of Canada. The Australians also made the excuse of
unemployment and an anti-Semitic backlash in a vast country that could have
housed many new immigrants. British colonies could have taken many thousands of
refugees and a greater attempt could have been made to negotiate with the Arabs
regarding immigration to Palestine declared as a Homeland for the Jewish people
in the Balfour Declaration of 1917. As Chaim Weizmann says of Britain, "Elegant
parties were given by von Ribbentrop in the German Embassy and British society
was falling over itself to attend. It
was a social distinction to receive an invitation and Jewish blood which
stained the hands of the hosts was ignored though it cried out to heaven."5
It appears, therefore, that for
various reasons, no country was willing to offer sanctuary to large numbers of
Jewish refugees. Sympathy abounded in most countries but when it came to
helping refugees, each county looked to another to take them. Even although the
harassment and killing of German and Austrian Jewry was well known, and caused
public outcry, it was still considered an internal affair of the German
government. As Adler-Rudel points out,
"The Germans soon realised that no matter how they behaved it did not prevent
foreign statesmen from shaking hands or dining with Nazi leaders."6
The threat to jobs was cited as one reason, but unemployment, for
example, in America, Britain and Australia was falling and even when immigrants
do get jobs in their new country, they may be ones which are not being filled
by the native population. After the
annexation of Austria and Adolf Eichmann's violent attempts to clear it of its
Jewish population came the threat of expulsion of Polish and Rumanian
Jewry. There was a great fear that a further
large number of refugees would continue to flee Germany, and when Germany
invaded Czechoslovakia, the number would become a torrent. However, difficulty in finding places for
refuge for those forced to emigrate is no excuse for giving up and leaving
these refugees to the fate decreed by Nazi Germany.
Those who spoke up for the Jews
such as James Macdonald, Sir Neill Malcolm and Sir John Hope Simpson, who was
very critical of restrictive policies towards refugees, were considered
disloyal and a nuisance. They might cause trouble and problems for Governments
and were therefore unsuitable for jobs that would enable them to speak out for
refugees. Other individuals such as Eleanor Rathbone, a British MP, also tried
to help the Jews, befriending many and helping them to immigrate to Britain.
British diplomat Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes, wrote from Berlin that the
treatment of Jews and political opponents in concentration camps made the
"Germans unfit for decent international society."7
A senior colleague in the Foreign Office in London agreed. "The Germans", he minuted, "are out to
eliminate the Jews at any cost to the latter and nothing we can do or say will
stop them."8 In this air of futility
very little was done to relax immigration laws. The Germans made things extremely difficult by refusing to allow
Jews to take their money and possessions with them when they were expelled and
most countries did not want to give refuge to penniless immigrants.
While it is true that it is
sometimes hard to assimilate people of a different faith and culture it is also
true that it was 'Christians' who marginalized the Jewish people from before
medieval times. They killed and
expelled many who entered their land and those who were allowed to settle in
many cases were forced into ghettos and separated from the rest of the
population.
Jewish leaders themselves had to stand by
as their people were excluded from one country after another and their
voluntary organisations did not have the funds to sponsor all the penniless refugees
fleeing from the Nazis. As Chaim Weizmann said to Anthony Eden, "The fire from
the synagogues may easily spread from there to Westminster Abbey and the other
great English cathedrals. If a
government is allowed to destroy a whole community which has committed no crime
save that of being a minority and having its own religion, if such a
government, at the heart of Europe, is not even rebuked, it means the beginning
of anarchy and the destruction of the basis of civilization. The powers which stand looking on without
taking any measures to prevent the crime will one day be visited by severe
punishment."9
Some wits who attended the
Conference pointed out that Evian spelled backwards is NAIVE but for the Jewish
people it was an extremely costly naivety.
©2001 Annette Shaw