18 Friday, February 4, 1983

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Western Nations Refused to Take in Jewish Refugees

(Continued from Page 1)
In both countries there
were sincere Christians
who sought to help but
there were vastly
stronger elements —

xenophobes, to be dip-
lomatic, anti-Semites to
be forthright — who were
an insurmountable bar-
rier to a massive rescue
operation,.

It is difficult now to
understand the moral and
emotional atmosphere of
the 1930s and 1940s, the
power of the prejudices that
ruled our lives, the insecu-

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rity and political weakness
of American Jewry. Father
Coughlin, preaching from
the Shrine of the Little
Flower to a radio audience
of millions, the Silver
Shirts, the Klan, the Bund
and a dozen similar organ-
izations and scores of anti-
Semitic publications
created an unhealthy if not
dangerous environment
for the Jews. It had its effect
in the halls of Congress.
But not all the Agitation
was from the rabid right
and the Nazi-inspired
fronts. America was
isolationist in sentiment
and distrustful of anything
that might add to the possi-
bility of America entering
the war. • Ambassador
Joseph Kennedy had re-
turned from London to pre-
ach isolationism and to
threaten Jews in the motion
picture induStry against
encouraging American
entry into the war under
penalty of facing the worst
outbreak of anti-Semitism
in the nation's history.
The country was still in
the throes of the Great De-
pression, unemployment
was widespread and labor
regarded immigration as an
economic threat. Congress
was hostile to any relaxa-
tion of the immigration
laws with their restrictive
national origin quotas and
the State Department
bureaucracy was deter-
mined not to ease in the
slightest the administrative
regulations the prospective
immigrant had to overcome.

* * *

' Immigration
Was Blocked

Public sentiment was
truly reflected in the case of
the Child Refugee Bill to
admit 10,000 refugee chil-
dren a year for two years
outside the German quota.
Eleanor Roosevelt actively
supported the bill and ob-
tained President -
Roosevelt's approval; it had
impressive backing but it
drew such a flood of protests
that Sen. Wagner withdrew
the bill lest Congressional
debate result in amend-
ments to the laws further
restricting immigration.
Another incident illus-
trative of the public temper
in 1939 was the case of the
ship the St. Louis. It had
sailed from Hamburg with
907 passengers, all but 194
of whom had qualified for
American visas and had
only to await their quota
number being reached. The
Cuban authorities refused
to permit the refugees to de-
bark at Havana to await
their American visas and
the ship lay for days within
sight of the American coast
while the American Jewish
organizations frantically —
and vainly — tried to obtain
permission for them to land
here.
Ultimately the ship took
its tragic human cargo
back to Europe. Most of
them, it can be assumed,
subsequently fell victim to
the Nazis.
There was much that
could have been done

VICTOR BIENSTOCK

tellectuals, wrote Eleanor
Roosevelt once that the
State Department had
erected "a wall of bureauc-
ratic measures" to keep the
victims of fascism out of the
United States.
There is no way to dis-
cover how many thousands
of European Jewish refu-
gees who could have entered
the U.S. legally found the
avenues of excape closed by
the barriers set up at the op-
erational level by the State
Department. But the
biggest obstacle to the re-
. scue of Europe's Jews was
that no country wanted
them. The United States
was no exception.
Canada, with its long
tradition as a country of
immigration, was almost
impenetrable to Jewish
refugees. Britain, prob-
ably because it was seal-
ing off Palestine from
Jewish immigraiton,
gave refuge to some
80,000 Jews, mostly from
Germany and Austria,
who had U.S. visa num-
bers and hqd someone to
provide financial
guarantees that they
would not become public
charges.
Largely on President
Roosevelt's initiative and as
a result of such pressure as
American Jewry could
exert, there was a series of
international conferences
— Evian, Bermuda and so
on — but they foundered on
the unalterable reality that
no large Western country
was prepared to open its
doors to the refugees.

even within the constric-
tive framework of the
immigration laws and
their weighted national
origin quotas but the of-
ficial will to assist had to
be there. It wasn't,-
The State Department's
visa operations were con-
trolled by Breckenridge
Long, a reactionary South-
erner and an anti-Semite
who was determined to
block an influx of refugees.
A warning that Long wrote
on German Jewish immi-
gration may have had no lit-
tle influence on President
Roosevelt's failure
to - tak
e
decisive , humanitarian ac-
tion such as would hav
bee expected of him.
been
Any special efforts to hel p
the Jews, ,
e
Long wrote
in a
memo, "may lend color to
the charge of Hitler that we
are fighting the war on ac-
count of and at the instiga
tion and direction of our
Jewish citizens." This im-
pression, he added, was al-
* * *
ready widespread in the
Ransom Plans -
Moslem world and was ex-
tremely dangerous.
Turned Down
Longs attitude was felt
Long after the slaughter
-throughout the consular of European Jews was
service and reflected in the known in gruesome detail
attitude of consular officials at high levels of govern-
who regarded it as their ment, an opportunity arose
duty to place as many obsta - to "buy" the lives and free-
cles as possible in the path dom of a number of Jews by
of the Jewish refugee seek- payment of a large sum of
ing a visa. There were nota- money to the Romanian
ble exceptions, of course, police.
and some consuls went out of
"We went to Secretary of
their way — sometimes at the Treasury Henry
risk to their future in the Morgenthau to apply for a
diplomatic service — to as - permit to transfer the
sist
. money," wrote Dr. Nahum
the refugees. The U.S
Embassy and consulates in Goldmann, then the chair-
Germany, as long as they man of the Zionist Emer-
functioned, were particu- gency Committee.
larly helpful.
"Since
President
But there were others. Roosevelt had no objec-
As a correspondent in tions, Morgenthau
Portugal in 1941, I had to readily assented. Unfor-
report that most of the tunately, the State De-
consular officers in Lis- partment's permission
bon observed a policy of was also required and
obstruction. (One, who negotiations with Cordell
did not, was transferred Hull (the Secretary of
to other duties.)
State) and his staff took
The routine was to de- so long that by the time
mand that the visa appli- we finally got their reluc-
cant produce documents the tant consent, it was too
consular official knew it late."
A year later, Joel Brand,
was impossible_to obtain —
a letter from the applicant's a Hungarian Zionist, came
home town chief of police out to Instanbul with an
offer from Adolf Eichmann
attesting to his character
for example, or a notarized to release 100,000 Jews in
birth certificate. The offi- ex change for 10,000 trucks.
cials knew that it was im- Th e British vigorously op-
possible for the applicant to Po sed the deal, partly on the
obtain these documents. gr ounds that it could help
Prof. Albert Einstein, th e Nazi war machine but
who spent much of his time l a rgely because the only
in those days in the at- h a yen for the ransomed
tempts to rescue Jewish in-
(C ontinued on Page 19)

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