America And The Evian Conference

Since he came into power in 1933, Hitler had started enforcing ferocities against Jews and dreamed establishing a pure-Nordic country. Hence, the Nazis enacted a series of anti-Jews laws. 525, 000 of Jews were deprived the right of engaging in political and economic activities and even the basic civic right in German. They were in a degradingly poor position and became refugees without nationalities actually. Consequently the problem of German Jewish refugees came into being. In March 1938, Germany occupied Austria, and 190,000 more Jews became refugees. The situation became more miserable for Jews, and Jewish refugee crisis broke out generally in Germany (including Austria). In July 1938, representatives from 32 countries in Europe, America and Oceania gathered at Evian, France, negotiating ways to solve refugee problem internationally. This Conference was called by Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGCR) was established, but it didn't make material difference later on. By a whole description of the Evian Conference, this article is trying to study the USA's role and importance in the Evian Conference from the perspectives of conference planning, preparation, proceedings and results. It not only exhibits refugee policies and foreign affairs policies of USA during this special period, but provides important experiences and lessons to resolve international refugees nowadays. Furthermore it is quite meaningful in studying the process of enacting policy in American government.It consists of three chapters as follows:Chapter one tells the historical background of the Evian Conference. Firstly, this chapter reviews how the German refugee problem came into being and developed before 1938, and then illustrates the attitudes and policies of international societies, with the League of Nations, France and USA as representatives, on the issue of German Jewish refugee problem. On the one hand, the Allied countries controlled by UK and France proposed solutions with little effects, and this chapter explains the reason; On the other hand, this chapter outlines USA's refugee policies during the time and its stand-by attitude towards German Jewish refugee problem. In the end of the chapter, the author describes the general outbreak of German (including Austria) Jewish refugee crisis which directly causes the organization of the Evian Conference in 1938.Chapter two, first of all, describes the planning process and results of the proposal proposed by the Department of State, and analyzes the hidden reasons why USA calls for the Evian Conference. Moreover, this chapter describes USA government's preparations for the Evian Conference, including the nomination of conference representatives and theestablishment of the President's Advisory Committee on Refugees, and reviews USA foreign affairs efforts to make the conference commence in due time.Chapter three mainly discusses the process, results and influence of the Evian Conference. The author focuses on how the USA representative—Myron Taylor broke through the obstacles set by both UK and Latin America and finally established Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGCR). In the end of the chapter, the author deeply discusses the success and failure, gains and loss, and innovative approaches of the Evian Conference and its director—USA as well.Consequently, the author concludes that the bilateral aspects of the policies of USA as the conference director should account for the failure to realize the goals of the Conference—solving German Jewish refugee problems. The USA government weighed more on political considerations rather than humanitarian attentions. However, from another point of view, Evian Conference made many innovative approaches.