The Evian conference, which was held from July 6 to July 15, 1938, fell far short of Jewish leaders’ hopes. Speaker after speaker reaffirmed the unwillingness of their countries to accept more Jews. The Australian delegate announced that “as we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one.” The British refused even to discuss Palestine as a possible haven. Newsweek, noting the appeal by the chairman of the U.S. delegation to the attendees “to act promptly” in addressing the refugee problem, noted, “Most governments represented acted promptly by slamming their doors against Jewish refugees.”
Golda Meir (then Meyerson), attending Evian as an observer from Palestine, concluded that “nothing was accomplished at Evian except phraseology.” At a press conference afterward she asserted, “There is only one thing I hope to see before I die, and that is that my people should not need expressions of sympathy anymore.”
Rabbi Wise said publicly that “American generosity and British caution” had been the theme of the conference. In private, however, Wise told a colleague that Evian had turned out to be “a gesture which means little,” from “an administration that pretends sympathy.”
Another critic pointed out that “Evian” was “Naive” spelled backwards. The problem, however, was not naiveté so much as it was calculated indifference.
From the Virgin Islands to Alaska
One of the most promising potential havens was the Virgin Islands, which attracted interest from refugee advocates because as it was a territory rather than a state, its immigration policy was not bound by all of America’s quota rules. For example, the governor had the authority to admit refugees, on a temporary basis, if he decided an emergency warranted doing so.
In response to the November 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom, Virgin Islands governor Lawrence Kramer and the Legislative Assembly declared their readiness to welcome European Jewish refugees.
But State Department officials persuaded President Roosevelt that “all kinds of undesirables and spies” would enter the Islands disguised as refugees, and from there proceed to the United States. As a result, FDR nixed the plan.
“I have sympathy,” Roosevelt told Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, a prominent supporter of the Virgin Islands haven plan. “I cannot, however, do anything which would conceivably hurt the future of present American citizens.”
Rabbi Wise declined to support the Virgin Islands proposal. He told a colleague in the autumn of 1940, shortly before that year’s presidential election, that admitting refugees to the Virgin Islands “might be used effectively against [Roosevelt] in the campaign.”
Therefore, Wise said, “Cruel as I may seem, as I have said to you before, his re-election is much more important for everything that is worthwhile and that counts than the admission of a few people, however imminent be their peril.” Other Jewish leaders likewise steered clear of the issue.
Another U.S. territory discussed as a possible haven for refugees was Alaska. Its settlement and development would have coincided closely with America’s strategic needs. Aggressive Japan was only 600 miles from the Alaskan shore. Just sixty-five miles away lay the Soviet Union, fresh from its occupation of eastern Poland and the Baltic countries, and not yet an ally of the U.S. against Nazi Germany.
An enemy army in Alaska would be within easy bombing range of America’s Pacific coast. A large labor force made up of European refugees could serve as a bulwark against such an eventuality by populating and developing the dangerously empty region.
The Interior Department and the Labor Department endorsed legislation, known as the King-Havenner bill, to promote Alaskan development by bringing in refugee laborers. But Roosevelt told Interior Secretary Ickes he would support only a watered-down version of the plan, in which just 10 percent of the workers would be Jews, so as “to avoid the undoubted criticism that we would be subjected to if there were an undue proportion of Jews.” The State Department and nativist groups strongly opposed allowing any use of Alaska for refugee resettlement, and Roosevelt soon dropped the whole idea.
