Evian Conference 6 - 15 July 1938

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Associate Professor of Modern & Contemporary History Faculty of Arts, South Valley University

Abstract

With the succession of the Nazi Party, life has become extremely unbearable for the Jews of Germany; they had to leave, yet they had nowhere to go. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Evian Conference that was held specifically to negotiate the Jews' crisis in Germany and Austria in 1938. The paper poses and attempts to answer the following questions: Who classified as a Jew according to German laws? Did Germany look at Judaism as a religion or as a race? Who could be classified as a "refugee" according to the Evian conference? What motivated the US to call for a conference? What role was played by Britain and the US to keep the crisis away from Palestine? What was the German government's, the Arabs', and the Jews' response to the conference? What were the main outcomes of the conference? It is worth mentioning that the Evian conference was neglected by many researchers, especially as it was seen as a failure. The main objective of this paper then is to examine the Evian conference from varied perspectives to see if it has truly failed or not, and to provide a detailed historical analysis of a much neglected issue.

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