1938 (26 page)

Perl was still hiring Greek boats, and on September 20, 130 of the original party left Fiume on the
Draga
for Palestine. Now that Italy, Yugoslavia, and Greece had closed their borders to the Jews, the only possible way out was down the Danube. No visas were required for the river steamers, but on the other hand Romania would not let them leave from their ports without entry visas. The Liberian consul in Vienna, however, was prepared to issue 1,000 visas for 10,000 RM on condition that none of the Jews turned up in Liberia. Perl not only had the use of the
Draga
but had two other ships, the
Gheppo
and the
Ely
. On the Danube route he was using the cruisers
Melk
and
Minerva
. On October 31, 1,100 people left Vienna on the two ships, successfully making it to Palestine.

THE DESPAIR of the Jews struck many visitors to Vienna. Mosche Schapira of the Zionist organization Hechaluz Hamisrachi in Palestine reported on their terrible despondency at the beginning of July: “I try to console them and give them courage, but this is all in vain if we cannot offer them real consolation in the form of certificates [visas].” On July 9 the Quaker Ethel Houghton in Vienna wrote to Alice Nike in London: “The situation here has become infinitely more acute. . . . Practically all Jews were dismissed from their employment on 1 July, without notice and given no compensation. . . . All Jews are being given notice to leave their houses if they are living in municipal blocks of flats, and also those living in the better districts of Vienna are shortly to be moved out.” She added with a certain naiveté, “There is a rumour that even those entitled to pensions will not get them. . . . The time has come when relief in some form is becoming an absolute necessity.” It appears that food parcels were suggested.

The gauleiter Globocnik made a speech on the 16th in which he asked disingenuously, “Why are the borders closed to poor Jews?” “No, comrades . . . we will solve the Jewish problem, and will not be dictated to by anybody else as to how.” In London, the
Times
published a letter on July 19, signed by—among many—the archbishop of York and George Bell, the bishop of Chichester. It related that there had been 7,000 Jewish suicides since the Anschluss. This is almost certainly a wild exaggeration. It called on Britain and the United States to act against this “degrading reproach against our humanity.” Bell made his maiden speech in the House of Lords on the 27th. He used the occasion to attack Nazi antisemitism. He chided Germans who had lowered themselves to “dishonour and cowardice.” He reported that even ministers of state in Vienna who had said openly that the place for the Jews was the Danube or in one of the city’s cemeteries.

The Evian Conference ran from July 6 to 15. Its purpose was to find homes for Europe’s oppressed Jews. President Roosevelt’s appeal of March 25 had set the ball in motion. He created a Presidential Advisory Committee on Political Refugees, while Secretary of State Cordell Hull invited the British, French, Belgians, Dutch, Danes, and Swedes, together with twenty Latin American countries. At first it seemed that America, Australia, and South America could absorb a large number of them. In March the American consul in Vienna had issued 25,000 forms, but this proved another false hope: The Jews had first to find backers in the United States, and the quota permitted from Austria was low—just 1,413. Later that small tally was subsumed into a figure of 27,130 for the whole Reich; this was better than Ireland (17,853) but less than half the quota for Great Britain (65,721), where no one was being forced to emigrate.

The League of Nations high commissioner for refugees, Sir Neill Malcolm, created difficulties too. He felt the Americans should not have convened the conference if they were unprepared to improve their quotas, and he refused to accept that the League was responsible for Germany’s Jews. The Viennese-born Dr. Henry I. Wachtel offered assistance to Jews, sending out copies of the New York telephone book and telling them to try their luck by contacting American Jews to secure affidavits.

The delegates arrived on the 5th, and Roosevelt’s emissary to the Holy See, Myron C. Taylor, had dinner that night with Lord Winterton and Sir Charles Palairet, the former British ambassador to Vienna. Although the meeting was called at Germany’s behest, the delegates were there to discuss the fates not just of German and Austrian Jews but also of Jews from Poland, Romania, and Hungary, countries that had also introduced racial laws and were anxious to see the backs of their Jewish populations. The conference had been called to deal with a pan-European problem and was in response to the Romanians, who on April 13 had proposed an annual export equivalent to the number of Jews born every year. They also pointed out that “Jewish problems” were not confined to Germany. Jewish exiles were already causing internal problems in many countries. The big three closed ranks. The Americans did not want to change their quotas. There were 40,000 German exiles in France, and both France and Britain expressed their reluctance to take in any more. At Evian Lord Winterton excused the British record by pointing out that the Mandate had already absorbed 300,000 Jews, including 40,000 Germans.

Countries such as Britain were interested in creaming off the best immigrants. The United Kingdom only desired physicians with a worldwide reputation or younger ones with two years of practical experience. On the other hand Britain was open to Jews wanting to enter full-time higher education, although the money to pay for the courses had to be found first. Those taking medical degrees were not allowed to practice. Other countries had more specific demands. In Central America they were against doctors and intellectuals; in Peru they wanted no lawyers. The Argentinians said they had done enough. San Domingo offered to take 100,000 Jews. A Belgian Catholic group agreed to help on condition that they submitted to baptism. Canada was not interested unless they brought riches with them; Denmark and Holland were fine for transit, but the Belgians required a visa—otherwise they would be sent back. China was still possible. Cuba wanted $500 dollars a head.

The idea of a homeland in Madagascar was raised again in the French press. Later Taylor looked into British suggestions. Their first choice of British Guiana was “not ideal,” as it would only accommodate 5,000 at the most. Northern Rhodesia could house four hundred to five hundred families. The Jews in Palestine believed that the British should have removed all restrictions on emigration and that they could have fitted in 80,000 to 100,000 new arrivals every year. On the other hand, peace between the Jews and the Arabs was the first priority. The British agreed on a compromise limiting emigration to Palestine to 75,000 Jews spread over five years.

One of the greatest disappointments of the conference was the stance of the British Dominions, countries with huge unpopulated expanses that showed great reluctance to allow significant numbers of Jews to settle. Kenya seemed particularly open to Jewish settlement. Northern Ireland was looking for industrious artisans.

As one Australian said at Evian, “We have no real racial problem [and] we are not desirous of importing one.” The Australians would not even allow Jews to land.

At the end of the conference the delegates had made provision for the intergovernmental committee to be opened in London “to continue and develop the work of the Evian meeting.” This was a British idea. A director would be appointed whose job was to improve the “conditions of exodus and to approach governments and countries of refuge.” In short: Nothing much had happened.

The British government went back to sleep and left it to Sir Wyndham Deedes and Bentwich to put pressure on the Dominions to accept more immigrants. Lord Winterton agreed to chair the new committee, and the American George Rublee became the director. Writing to his friend and collaborator Wilfred Israel at the end of the month, Catchpool called Evian “a catastrophic setback.”

Der Stürmer
exulted. Fips drew a picture of a Jew in black tie being pelted with eggs and fruit: The Jewish “distortion” on Lake Geneva had come to nothing. The Jew was mocked for his cries of “Oy vey!” Not all doors had closed, however. Writing on August 27, an official at Friends’ House in London said, “I’m afraid we were too hopeful about the results of the conference. We frequently suggest Bolivia to people who have friends in London, who are prepared to help them to a small extent, because we understand that a visa can be obtained from this end if a passport can be sent here. . . . For an enterprising foreigner with some sort of technical training, prospects are good.”

Bolivia was considered “the Rolls Royce of emigrations.” Entry cost £36 or £50 if traveling from Brazil. On the other hand the fee was waived if the immigrant had a job to go to. There were further complications from the point of view of transit to the landlocked state: Brazil was closed to non-baptized Jews, and in theory even Christian Jews had to have been baptized as infants (Grimes’s backdated certificates might have helped here). Argentina admitted Jews only if invited by a relative. It had nonetheless been clear before the conference that South America was a rather more promising destination than the north; after the meeting, however, they created difficulties. The conference closed more doors than it opened. To some extent the Americans were to blame for this: They were worried that a large influx of German immigrants would upset their trading arrangements in Latin America, especially if something like the Ha’avara scheme were introduced.

Some Austrian Jews had also been allowed to attend the conference. Arthur Kuffler was there from the Gildemeester Aktion, together with the ear specialist Heinrich von Neumann, who had a brief to sell the Jews to anyone who would buy them. There was also Berthold Storfer, who was negotiating with the American Jewish charities HICEM and JOINT. They were offering similar ideas to Gildemeester: a waiver on property rights and a lump-sum payment into Nazi coffers. Nothing came of their projects, or indeed Evian.

Italy’s racial policy was falling into line with Germany’s. On July 13 a manifesto was published against the Jews, provoking the pope to speak out against Fascist ideas on race. “That is wonderful!” noted Goebbels, “but how cheeky these priests are.” The pope did not desist and condemned racialism once again at the end of the month.

With Italy closing its doors, the easiest path to safety for an Austrian Jew was still a quick dash across the green or lightly patrolled border at Bratislava. Sometimes the Gestapo simply pushed the Jews across, as in the case of some eight hundred reported by the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
to be in Brno on August 10. From Brno there was a chance of getting on a Danube steamer. The first refugees to arrive in Greece were recorded in July. Here they waited until they could find someone to bribe to take them across the Mediterranean. It could be a long wait and risky too. In April 1939 the British fired on the
Aghios Nicolaos
, killing one Jew and wounding others. The ship sailed back to Athens. There were eighty-three former Austrians on board.

The Dutch and Belgians were showing their teeth, evicting Jews without transit papers, even when they had visas for another country. As the Jews had generally used up their money getting as far as they had, they had to reimburse the authorities for their repatriation. Sometimes the Gestapo or customs officers connived at pushing them over the border in these circumstances, but only if they could prove they had paid all their taxes. Some even helped by changing their papers for them. In Aachen there was a Gestapo man called Nägele who charged 100 to 200 RM to take Jews over the border. This sort of behavior further incensed the Swiss police chief Rothmund to insist that Germany print the visas in the passports. The Italians now affirmed that they would take no more Jews with Portuguese visas, as the Portuguese had told them they were worthless without permission from the Portuguese minister of the interior. The Italians made it clear that these hopefuls could not stay in Italy either.

While Austrians began to grumble about Nazi rule, Berlin chose its moment to move against the Church. Cardinal Innitzer had ceased his cooperation with the authorities; the Nazis, for their part, decided there was no need to observe the Austrian concordat by which the Church’s role had been guaranteed under the Corporate State. The doubtful morality of a few monks in the past was used for propaganda purposes in justification.