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THE ABANDONMENT OF THE JEWS -- AMERICA AND THE HOLOCAUST, 1941-1945 |
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[b]6. BERMUDA[/b]
The Bermuda Conference grew out of the public reaction in Britain to the reports that the European Jews were being exterminated. Publicity about the Holocaust was more widespread and cries for action more forceful in England than in the United States. Pressure on the British government rose rapidly in late 1942 and continued to increase well into 1943. The main impetus came from Christian church leaders and from members of Parliament. [1]
To quiet the pressures, the British government initiated the steps that led to the United Nations war-crimes declaration of December 17, 1942. The declaration, however, did little to moderate the demands for action. In January the archbishops of Canterbury, York, and Wales, speaking for the entire Anglican Episcopate, called on the government to move immediately to save the Jews and to provide sanctuary for all who could get out of Nazi Europe. A similar appeal was issued jointly by Arthur Cardinal Hinsley, Britain's foremost Roman Catholic prelate, Dr. J. H. Henz, the nation's chief rabbi, and John Whale, moderator of the Free Church Federal Council. A delegation representing all par- ties and both houses of Parliament met with the leaders of the Cabinet to press for rapid action. [2]
The clamor reached a high point when William Temple, the archbishop of Canterbury, addressed the House of Lords on March 23. He deplored the months already lost, pleaded for immediate rescue steps, and warned, "We at this moment have upon us a tremendous responsibility. We stand at the bar of history, of humanity and of God." [3]
In the meantime, in another move calculated to temper the public outcry, the Foreign Office had sent a memorandum to the American State Department. It proposed an "informal United Nations conference" to consider the possibilities of removing "a proportion" of the thousands of refugees who had reached neutral European countries. This could encourage those countries to allow more refugees in from Nazi territory. [4]
The Foreign Office pointed out, however, that "certain complicating factors" made the problem very difficult. For one thing, the refugee issue could not be handled as "a wholly Jewish problem," because many refugees were nor Jewish and "Allied criticism would probably result if any marked preference were shown in removing Jews." Furthermore, there was "the distinct danger" that anti-Semitism would be. stimulated in areas to which "an excessive number of foreign Jews" was transferred. The real "complicating factor" for the British was also revealed in cold words:
The memorandum spelled out the supposedly heavy contributions that Great Britain and the empire were already making in accommodating refugees. It also noted the "generous" response of the United States in that regard. The Foreign Office suggested, however, that if the United States and Britain could agree to take in some more, "the way would be open" to approach other governments to find out what they would do.
In Washington, the responsibility for dealing with the British overture fell to Breckinridge Long, one of four assistant secretaries of state. [i] While the Foreign Office grew increasingly anxious because of rising public, pressures, Long and his subordinates studied the British proposal for nearly five weeks, Their lengthy reply, signed by Hull, was essentially an attempt to sidestep the issue. As Long boasted in his diary;
The American response consisted mainly of examples to prove that the U.S. government "has been and is making every endeavor to relieve the oppressed and persecuted peoples." Because this assertion was not true, nearly all the examples involved gross exaggeration or distortion, For instance, one of the "measures of assistance" was the "application of the immigration laws of the United States in the utmost liberal and humane spirit of those laws," This claim was flagrantly false, [ii] Another item gave the impression that the United States had taken in half a million refugees from Nazism since 1933, Actually, less than half that number had come, A further example of the heavy burdens Americans were supposedly shouldering was the internment in the United States of large numbers of prisoners of war, Even the "relocation centers where approximately 110,000 persons of the Japanese race are being housed and maintained at public expense" were cited to illustrate American sacrifices. [iii] [6]
Ignoring the British proposal for a United Nations refugee conference in London, the State Department asserted that the best approach would be to work through the already existing Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (ICR), Accordingly, it recommended a British American meeting at Ottawa for a "preliminary exploration" of ways to strengthen the ICR. [8]
The Intergovernmental Committee, the ineffectual creation of the Evian Conference on refugees of 1938, had been moribund since the war began. Its twenty-nine member nations had never supported it; it had seldom been possible even to convene representatives of the few states that composed its executive committee. While the Nazis methodically murdered thousands of Jews each day, America's leaders offered a "preliminary exploration" of ways to revive a proven failure. [9]
In one respect the State Department note registered full agreement with the British: "The refugee problem should not be considered as being confined to persons of any particular race or faith." Thus the high principle of nonpreferential treatment was employed to avoid the main issue, the total annihilation of one particular people. [10]
The apparent motivation, as with the British, was concern about the possible release of hundreds of thousands of Jews. A subsidiary factor was undoubtedly fear within the Roosevelt administration that special steps to help the Jews would encourage anti-Semitic and anti-Roosevelt forces to attack the administration as pro-Jewish. Roosevelt's appointments of a few Jews to important posts, coupled with strong Jewish support for him, had for years drawn charges that he was operating a "Jew Deal." With anti-Semitism widespread in the United States, such attacks were taken seriously. [11]
State Department officials had been content to procrastinate for weeks while the British government felt the heat. But when confronted with similar pressures, they quickly saw the value of the conference. Less than forty-eight hours after the Madison Square Garden demonstration of March I, the State Department moved to offset this display of public concern by releasing to the press the message it had sent the British. This constituted an extraordinary breach of diplomatic practice, not only because the confidential negotiations were still in process, but also because the American note, published by itself, conveyed the false impression that the United States had initiated the plans for a conference. [12]
The British angrily countered with a protest to the State Department and a press release detailing their claims of extensive aid to refugees. The Canadian government was also upset, for the State Department had failed to inform it of the proposed conference at Ottawa. Moreover, it did not wish to find itself facing possible pressure to modify its own stringent limits on refugee immigration. [13]
The British acceded to the American plan of a "preliminary two-power discussion on the refugee problem" and revival of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, but asked for a change of location. They apparently feared that a meeting in Canada would be vulnerable to the fast-rising pressures in England. They suggested Washington, but Breckinridge Long persuaded Hull and Welles to block that. Long wrote in his office diary:
Agreement finally came on Bermuda, a location that would shield the conferees from public opinion, the press, and Jewish organizations because wartime regulations restricted all access to the island. [14]
Selecting a chairman for the American delegation presented difficulties. Myron Taylor was the obvious choice. The central figure at the Evian Conference, he had been associated with the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees since its formation. But Taylor declined, pleading heavy involvement in his work on postwar planning. The deeper cause, however, was his belief that the conference would achieve nothing. He tried unsuccessfully to convince the State Department of the necessity for prior agreement on what the two great allies were willing to do. An effective program, in his view, required both powers to take refugees in, pay their transportation costs, and guarantee postwar evacuation from other nations willing to act as temporary havens. [15]
Associate Justice Owen]. Roberts of the Supreme Court also refused the post. Court business required his attention until early June. Dr. Charles Seymour, president of Yale University, accepted but later withdrew because his trustees objected. It was not a good spring for finding distinguished Americans who could devote time to the tragedy of the Jews of Europe. Finally, a week before the conference opened, Princeton University's president, Dr. Harold W. Dodds, agreed to serve as chairman. [16]
The State Department also chose two members of Congress for the American delegation, Senator Scott Lucas (Dem., Ill.) and Representative Sol Bloom (Dem., N.Y.). It suggested that the President select additional delegates, but he took no action. Roosevelt showed minimal interest in the Bermuda Conference in other respects as well. Two weeks after plans for the conference were made public, he asked Hull what it was about. Hull referred him to Long, who explained that it "was to be simply a preliminary meeting to put in motion the Executive Committee of the Intergovernmental Committee on Political Refugees." Long also told Roosevelt that the conference site had been rearranged to sidestep public pressures that would be unavoidable in London or Washington. Roosevelt replied that he agreed completely. [iv] [17]
The President had almost nothing more to do with the conference, although he tried to persuade Justice Roberts to serve as chairman. Roosevelt apparently saw no urgency in the matter, as his note of April 10 to Roberts indicated:
Shortly afterward the public announcement came: the conference would open on April 19, just three months after the initial British proposal. [19]
The long delays, the diplomatic sparring, and the controlled format of the conference did not hearten concerned Americans. Congress Weekly wondered in mid-March why the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, "which was created in 1938 and which presumably has had this responsibility all along, is now to await the results of a 'preliminary exploration.''' Two weeks later it concluded that shifting the meeting to Bermuda was a ploy "to keep the proceedings veiled in." The New Republic expressed similar misgivings:
The isolation of the conference troubled the Joint Emergency Com mittee on European Jewish Affairs. After failing in its attempt to discuss the conference with President Roosevelt, the JEC tried to arrange for a small delegation to be heard at Bermuda. This was also frustrated. The Jewish congressmen who saw the President on April 1 raised the question. But Roosevelt rejected the idea. A week later, Joseph Proskauer asked Sumner Welles about it. Welles said it was impossible, but invited Proskauer to recommend three people to go to the conference as technical experts. [21]
After consultation with the JEC, Proskauer suggested George L. Warren, executive secretary of the President's Advisory Committee on Political Refugees, Dr. Joseph Schwartz, European director for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, and Herman Shulman, a highly regarded New York lawyer. Only Warren was chosen, and he had already been selected-a fact unknown to Proskauer-because of his longstanding role as adviser to the State Department on refugee affairs. Schwartz, temporarily home after nineteen months of refugee. relief work in Europe, was more knowledgeable than any of the five experts who were sent, except Warren. [22]
Efforts were made to persuade Congressman Sol Bloom to battle for the JEC proposals. The State Department's choice of Bloom as a delegate had been a shrewd move. His position as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee appeared to qualify him particularly well for the task. At the same time, many people would see him as capable of upholding Jewish interests at the conference. But no one connected with the Joint Emergency Committee had confidence in Bloom. In his many years on the Foreign Affairs Committee, he had consistently followed the State Department's lead. Celler even considered protesting his appointment as a delegate, and Nahum Goldmann characterized the selection of Bloom as "an alibi." Nevertheless, four people from the JEC spoke with Bloom about the group's rescue proposals, and Proskauer wrote to him. [v] [23]
In a last-ditch effort to influence the conference, the Joint Emergency Committee sent its list of rescue proposals to Welles along with an appendix of specific suggestions for implementing the program. An accompanying letter formally requested that a small group from the JEC be invited to Bermuda to explain the proposals. It closed with an appeal to Welles personally, asking him to use his influence to turn the conference into an instrument for "rescuing a defenseless people who are otherwise doomed to complete annihilation." [25]
By the eve of the conference, the Joint Emergency Committee had received no response. Angered at their inability to make any impact on government policymakers, these foremost leaders of American Jewry briefly considered militant action. But they settled for a press confer ence to expose the government's indifference. It had a negligible impact. [26]
Welles never replied to the Joint Emergency Committee's appeal. An answer came from Breckinridge Long, after the conference had started. He wrote that he had forwarded the committee's material to the American delegation. Long did not mention the JEC's formal request to be heard at Bermuda. [27]
Others who submitted proposals to the Bermuda Conference included the President's Advisory Committee on Political Refugees. It especially addressed the problem of havens to which refugees who had reached neutral nations could be evacuated, thus facilitating a continuing flow out of Axis-controlled territory. The committee particularly urged consideration of the Western Hemisphere and specifically recommended British Honduras, where land and buildings owned by an American refugee-relief organization were available. [28]
Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle suggested another war-crimes warning, this time combined with intimations to Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria that they might gain more lenient postwar treatment if they would protect their Jews and facilitate their escape. He also recommended Cyrenaica (the eastern hump of Libya) as a sanctuary for as many as 100,000 Jews for the rest of the war. Long dismissed the first suggestion. The Cyrenaica idea, already on the docket for Bermuda and frequently discussed later, never materialized. [29]
Senator Edwin Johnson, national chairman of the Committee for a Jewish Army, introduced a resolution calling on the conferees at Bermuda to take swift action to save the remaining European Jews. It did not reach the Senate floor. As the conference opened, the Army Committee published a large advertisement in the Washington Post addressed "TO THE GENTLEMEN AT BERMUDA." It demanded the immediate formation of a United Nations rescue agency. "ACTION is called for," cried the CJA. "ACTION -- not 'exploratory' words." [30]
Before the Bermuda Conference convened, the director of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, Sir Herbert Emerson, evaluated the possibilities for rescue. Since the State Department and the Foreign Office had recently decided that the ICR was the proper mechanism for handling the refugee problem, Emerson's views offered an indication of the prospects for Europe's Jews. He emphasized that "the cardinal test" of all rescue proposals was that they "should not be inconsistent with the efficient waging of the war." No one had recommended otherwise, but Emerson interpreted this requirement very narrowly. For instance, concerning proposals that the Allies approach the Axis powers and offer to take in as many victims of persecution as they would release, Emerson believed that, "in their extreme form, it may be as sumed that these will be dismissed as not conforming to the above test." He did not explain why. He did concede, though, that "there is a point at which the rescue of limited numbers with the consent or acquiescence of the Government concerned is practicable." His illustrations, involving a few thousand children in the Balkans and France, showed that his idea of "limited numbers" was very limited, as was his entire concept of rescue. [31]
Emerson's specific proposals dealt mostly with increasing the refugee flow out of Spain until it equaled the flow coming in. This would head off any Spanish inclination to limit further entry. Though important, this was a minor part of the overall problem. Even fur that, all Emerson could suggest was the establishment of an emergency camp in North Africa, provided it was not ruled out by "military and political considerations, in which I include racial difficulties." [32]
Neither Emerson nor the conveners of the Bermuda Conference had large-scale action in mind. When Proskauer asked Welles for his assessment ten days before the conference opened,
As it turned out, 50,000 was wildly optimistic. [33]
For twelve days, the diplomats lived and worked at The Horizons, an oceanside resort set among hibiscus and oleander and lily fields in bloom for Easter. The American delegates, Dodds, Bloom, and Lucas, were assisted by a secretary and five technical experts. The support staff was crucially important because none of the delegates was familiar with the subject of the conference. Lucas, for instance, told the press he was not acquainted with the refugee problem but intended to study it care· fully. [34]
The secretary, R. Borden Reams, had persistently sought to stifle publicity about the extermination of the Jews and had tried to cripple the United Nations war-crimes declaration of December 1942. Robert C. Alexander, assistant chief of the State Department's Visa Division, served as one of the technical experts. He was convinced that the Nazis, "for their own ulterior motives," had created some of the Jewish organizations and that Hitler was "really behind the [Jewish] pressure groups." [35]
The other technical experts were George Backer, George Warren, Lloyd Lewis, and Julian Foster. Foster, who served as shipping adviser, was a career State Department official. Lewis was a friend of Senator Lucas. Warren, of the President's Advisory Committee, was competent and greatly concerned about the refugee problem. His views were nonetheless influenced by his close relationship with the State Department. Backer headed the Jewish Telegraphic Agency as well as American ORT, an organization devoted to training Jews of Europe and the Americas in technical trades and agriculture. [36]
The British delegates were experienced, high-level Cabinet officials. And four of their five technical experts were drawn from Cabinet offices relevant to the issues under discussion. The delegates were Richard Law, son of a former prime minister and parliamentary undersecretary of state for foreign affairs; Osbert Peake of the Home Office; and George Hall from the Admiralty. An American journalist at the conference was troubled by the glaring disparity between the two delegations. [37]
Only five news correspondents were allowed to go to Bermuda. They represented the various wire services; no individual newspapers were permitted to send reporters. [38]
A great number of proposals had been submitted to the conference. For the Americans, though, the State Department simplified the task of evaluation. It defined the positive objectives, listed specific prohibitions, and required that all other issues be cleared with Washington. [39]
The positive objectives were three. First, to devise steps to encourage neutral European nations to accept more escaped refugees. Second, to seek temporary havens in United Nations territories in Europe and Africa and to locate transportation to them. Third, to call an early meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees to implement the decisions reached at Bermuda.
Strictly prohibited was any special emphasis on Jews. And no steps were to be taken exclusively for Jews. State Department officials also imposed a three-part directive obviously calculated to keep refugees out of the United States. "No commitment regarding trans-Atlantic ship ping space for refugees can be made." Such arrangements could delay unpredictable, but urgent, plans for moving Axis prisoners of war and wounded American soldiers across the ocean. [vi] Furthermore, "even if shipping space could be found," it would be unnecessary and impractical to move refugees to America when they could be placed in sanctuaries in or near Europe. Finally, delegates were cautioned that the administration had "no power to relax or rescind [the immigration) laws." (Unmentioned was the fact that the administration did have the power to allow the legal quotas, then almost untouched, to be filled.) Clearly, the State Department had rationalized a prior decision to permit no increase in the trickle of refugees then entering the United States.
The British imposed additional limitations. Law characterized as "fantastic" the proposals that the United Nations approach Germany for the release of the Jews and that food be sent to persecuted people in Europe. The American delegates agreed that these suggestions were "impossible and outside the scope of the Conference," but only after having silenced Bloom, who fought tenaciously, if briefly, for negotiations for the release of Jews. The conference's minutes reveal once more the deep fear the two powers shared that a large exodus of Jews might take place. [41]
Law warned
Approaches to the satellite Axis countries were not discussed at all. Yet this had been an important part of the proposals sent by the Jewish groups. They believed such negotiations were especially promising now that the tide of war had turned and some satellites were seeking to placate the Allies. [44]
The proposal to send food to the starving victims of the Nazis received no support. The conferees concurred that food shipments into Axis Europe fell under the authority of Allied blockade officials and outside the purview of the conference. Dodds advised, furthermore, that lend-lease supplies would not be available for refugees. [45]
On British insistence, another key issue was excluded from the agenda. Britain's Palestine policy would not be discussed at the conference. [46]
Working, then, under guidelines that precluded large-scale rescue, the diplomats addressed peripheral problems. Most effort focused on refugees who had fled to Spain. If they could be moved out, a channel for a continuous flow of new escapees from Axis territory might be opened. [47]
According to the delegates' information, Spain harbored 6,000 to 8,000 Jewish refugees. (Actually, this was an overestimate.) Most had fled the mass roundups and deportations that began in France in the summer of 1942. The conferees learned that 3,000 of them were capable of military service or war-related work for the Allies. The British and American diplomatic missions in Spain were already moving them to North Africa. The main issue addressed at the Bermuda Conference thus came down to the evacuation of 5,000 Jews from Spain. [48]
The problem of transportation was tackled first. The State Department shipping expert advised that all United Nations shipping was needed to move supplies and troops and to carry prisoners of war and wounded soldiers to the United States. Neutral shipping offered the only possibility for refugee transport. Despite a lack of clear information, the delegates decided that four or five Portuguese liners, each with a capacity of 600 persons, could be obtained. [viii] [49]
No effort was made to devise ways that United Nations ships might help, even though thousands of troopships and lend-lease and other cargo vessels were returning to the United States empty or in ballast. The delegates did discuss use of that empty space. But they concluded that diversion of ships to unscheduled ports to pick up refugees would delay their war-related missions. Could refugees be assembled at the ports where troops and supplies were unloaded? The conferees found an answer for that too. The concentration of refugees might interfere with military operations or pose a security risk. [51]
The delegates also wrestled with the question of where the 5,000 refugees could go. Entry certificates for Palestine were available for 3,000, but there appeared to be no way of moving them there. The delegates talked at length about transferring 2,000 people to Angola. Then it occurred to them that no one had asked the Portugese about using their colony. The British delegates thought Jamaica might possibly accept 500 refugees. But it was most unlikely that British colonies in East Africa could accommodate any. Nothing, it seemed, could be done to open Latin America or Canada. [52]
The Cyrenaican region of Libya looked promising, but not for the Jews in Spain. The delegates decided it would be a good location for non-Jewish refugees, probably Greeks. This suggestion would enable the conference to "create a very good impression" by showing that it was not acting only for Jews. Lucas, who thought this particularly important, emphasized "the existing reaction in Congress against confining the problem just to the Jewish refugees." The delegates agreed to recommend Cyrenaica as a refugee haven. [53]
Late in the deliberations, the British delegation maneuvered the Americans into recommending that the United States admit 1,000 to 1,500 of the refugees in Spain. In reality, America's extremely tight immigration procedures meant that nothing like that number of visas would be granted. But the conferees, eager for results, at least on paper, entered this proposal in their list of recommendations. [54]
The Bermuda Conference also called for establishment of a reception camp in North Africa to accommodate 3,000 people. Refugees could be moved to the camp and held there pending arrangements for migration overseas. Meanwhile, with those refugees gone, Spain could permit entry of new escapees. The British delegation initiated the proposal, frankly admitting it was needed to placate the public clamor for concrete action. [55]
At first the Americans, especially Bloom, strenuously opposed it. They argued that such a camp could disrupt military operations in North Africa and might incur the hostility of the Arabs. But the American delegation was soon convinced that the plan was "one of the few definitely affirmative steps" the conference could make to "allay some of the criticism" leveled at the two governments. Dodds telegraphed the State Department asking quick approval of the proposal. He pointedly mentioned that American resistance to it placed the British in "an advantageous position so far as the record is concerned." [56]
The idea made Breckinridge Long uneasy, but he saw the force of Dodds's argument. He submitted the plan to the military. The War Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff strongly opposed it. They maintained that an influx of Jewish refugees might stir up the Arab population and require military action to keep order. The leaders in the area itself, General Dwight Eisenhower and French General Henri Giraud, raised no such objection. They approved the plan, but advised that the removal of the Jewish refugees would have to wait, probably for months, until 15,000 young Frenchmen who had also escaped to Spain had been transferred to North Africa to join the Allied forces. [57]
Since the military did not provide a clear decision, the Bermuda delegates recommended the camp plan, "subject to military considerations." A month later, Roosevelt's ambiguous message to the State Department left the question unresolved:
Only in July, following further discussions with the British, did Roosevelt accede to the establishment of the camp. [ix] [58]
Seemingly, the diplomats had solved the comparatively minor problem of the 5,000 Jewish refugees in Spain. But fewer than 2,000 were in fact evacuated, most of them not until a year after the Bermuda Conference. The theory that the expeditious removal of the refugees might open a pipeline for continuing escapes from Nazi territory never re ceived a trial. [60]
The Bermuda Conference considered problems other than that of Spain, but not many and not in much depth. Seeking ways to encourage neutral European countries to accept escaping refugees, the delegates discussed the question of providing food and funds for their maintenance. But they made no recommendations. They did draft a declaration to be issued jointly by the Allied nations, including the governments-in-exile. It assured neutral states that each of the signatories would readmit its citizens at the end of the war. The joint declaration also stipulated that refugees who were former citizens of Axis nations would be enabled to return to their countries of origin. The conferees pointed out that the statement's effectiveness depended on its being issued "in the near future." More than a year later, though, the necessary endorsements still had not been obtained. Procrastination, State Deportment blunders, quibbling over wording, and Russian stalling all contributed to the failure of this plan. [61]
The Bermuda delegates also recommended reorganization and strengthening of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees. They proposed several changes. The ICR's pre-war mandate to negotiate with Germany for an orderly exodus of refugees from the Reich would have to be altered to apply to all European refugees. The power to deal with Germany had to be rescinded. (The new mandate should provide for "negotiations with Allied and neutral governments but not, of course, with enemy governments. ") The ICR's membership should be broadened to include Russia, Poland, Greece, Yugoslavia, and possibly Spain, Portugal, and other nations. In addition, greatly increased funding was essential Previously, most financing of refugee rescue and maintenance had come from private organizations; governments had contributed little more than the ICR's paltry administrative expenses. For the Intergovernmental Committee to expand its role, the member governments would have to assume the additional costs. Finally, the staff, which consisted of an unpaid director and one secretary, would have to be enlarged. [62]
Convinced of the necessity for "early and decisive action," the conferees urged that the ICR's reorganization be carried out by telegraph. This was a workable suggestion, for its executive committee could make oil the changes, and only three nations were on it besides Britain and the United States. [63]
In the end, the ICR accepted the recommendations with only minor modifications. But the picayune analysis and leisurely pace of the State Department and the Foreign Office slowed the process for months. Instead of telegraphic negotiations, a meeting of the ICR's executive committee was called. It did not take place until August. Implementation of the changes then dragged on for another live months. The delays were not the only reason the Intergovernmental Committee never became an effective agency, but they reflected the basic cause for its failure -- the very shallow commitment of the American and British governments to rescuing the victims of Nazi terror. [64]
As the Bermuda Conference neared adjournment, the delegations prepared a joint report for their governments. Their list of recommendations included little more than (1) the admonition "that no approach be made to Hitler for the release of potential refugees," (2) the proposal that the two governments act immediately to obtain neutral shipping to transport refugees, (3) the request that the British consider admitting refugees into Cyrenaica, (4) suggestions for moving refugees out of Spain, (5) the proposal for a joint Allied declaration on the postwar repatriation of refugees, and (6) the plan for the reorganization of the Intergovernmental Committee. [65]
Perhaps out of embarrassment at the poverty of results, the conferees decided to keep the report and the recommendations secret. [x] They released a one-page bulletin to the press, which stated only that they had carefully analyzed all possibilities of alleviating the refugee problem and were submitting U a number of concrete recommendations" to their governments. Since the recommendations involved other governments and "military considerations," they would have to remain confidential. [66]
American press coverage of the Bermuda Conference was negligible. Ten major metropolitan newspapers across the country paid only casual attention to it. All ten reported on the keynote speeches by Law and Dodds. Beyond that, only the New York Times did a fairly thorough job, running stories concerning eleven of the conference's twelve days. But several of the articles were tiny and inconspicuous, and the one report that reached the Times's front page rated only four inches of print there. None of the other nine papers even approached adequate coverage. [68]
The poor performance of the press was consistent with the American mass media's general failure to treat the extermination of the European Jews as significant news. An additional factor regarding the Bermuda Conference was the close governmental control of information. The few correspondents allowed at the conference were excluded from its deliberations. Forced to rely on guesswork, rumor, and a few official statements, they termed the meeting a H no news conference." [69]
Despite their secretiveness about specific information, the delegates made it evident that the conference would not produce significant action. At the start, Dodds stressed that "the solution to the refugee problem is to win the war," a conclusion that he and Law publicly reemphasized soon afterward. Time and again, conferees advised that they saw little chance for immediate help. One explained it to reporters this way: "Suppose he (Hitler] did let 2,000,000 or so Jews out of Europe, what would we do with them?" As the days passed, bits of information surfaced intimating that most proposals submitted to the conference had been rejected or referred without recommendation to the Intergovernmental Committee. [70]
The. miniature headlines above the tiny newspaper reports from Bermuda recorded the failure:
American Jewish leaders, organizations, and publications denounced the proceedings at Bermuda. Jewish Frontier accused the delegates of having approached their mission "in the spirit of undertakers," Stephen Wise described the conference as "sad and sordid," while Opinion magazine termed it a "woeful failure." The Committee for a Jewish Army headlined a three-quarter page advertisement in the New York Times: "To 5,000,000 Jews in the Nazi Death-Trap Bermuda Was a 'Cruel Mockery,'" [72]
Beneath the torrent of outrage flowed a deeper current of despondency. It was evident, for example, in Jewish Outlook, an Orthodox Zionist monthly, which declared that the conference had "revealed the hardness of heart" of the democracies and had "destroy(ed) every hope." Despair also overran the Joint Emergency Committee on European Jewish Affairs. Its vitality was sapped by the unmistakable demonstration of indifference by the two great democracies. [73]
The JEC did not meet for a month after Bermuda. When it did reconvene, it was clear that demoralization had set in. Jacob Rosenheim of the Agudath Israel World Organization described the mood as "more than desperate. The Bermuda Conference has crushed any chance of hope for the rescue of out unhappy brethren and sisters doomed to death by Hitler." Lillie Shultz of the American Jewish Congress felt almost completely frustrated about what might be attempted next, given the stark "indifference of the world." The JEC, a once-hopeful initiative in unified Jewish action, never recovered from the shattering impact of Bermuda. [74]
Jews were not alone in their distress over the Bermuda Conference. Dr. Frank Kingdon, a prominent Christian educator, denounced it and its ill-informed delegates as "a shame and a disgrace." CIO president Philip Murray publicly assailed the "closed-door policy" that kept his union's leaders from being heard at Bermuda. Among several other protesters were Socialist party leader Norman Thomas, who decried "the small and sorry results of the Refugee Conference," and a group of distinguished Christian churchmen led by Reinhold Niebuhr and Daniel Poling. [75]
In the House of Representatives, Samuel Dickstein deplored the proceedings at Bermuda: "Not even the pessimists among us expected such sterility." More angrily outspoken was Emanuel Celler, who condemned the conference as an exercise in "diplomatic tight-rope walking." His attack grew into a long-term assault on State Department refugee policies. Celler also tried to interest Stephen Wise in convening "an unofficial conclave of Representatives and Senators sympathetic to active and genuine rescue." The purpose was to put "extreme pressure" on the administration to save Jews. But the plan was not pursued. [76]
Sol Bloom found himself in the eye of the storm a few weeks after the conference when he stated, "No one can criticize what we did in Bermuda without knowing what we did. But I as a Jew am perfectly satisfied with the results." He also warned the Jewish organizations that were pressing for rescue, "The security of winning the war is our first step. We as Jews must keep this in mind." Wise angrily accused him of falling back on "cheap and theatrical emotionalism" and added that Bloom should have chosen "the grace of silence with respect to the ineptitude and worse of Bermuda." Celler was equally harsh. [77]
Bloom appeared surprised at the criticism. He informed a friend that "the Jews have been attacking me because they seem to be dissatisfied with what we did at the Bermuda Conference.... I personally believe we did everything we possibly could do and some day when the facts are known, they may think differently." Yet, he later told Celler that "I was helpless" at Bermuda. [78]
In historical perspective, what were the results of the Bermuda Conference? For the stricken Jews of Europe, only the belated establishment of a small camp in North Africa. But help for the Jews was not, after all, the objective of the diplomacy at Bermuda. Its purpose was to dampen the growing pressures for rescue. Richard Law freely acknowledged this many years later: the process was no more than "a facade for inaction." [79]
While the conference was still in session, Rabbi Israd Goldstein publicly exposed the strategem: "The job of the Bermuda Conference apparently was not to rescue victims of Nazi terror, but to rescue our State Department and the British Foreign Office." Goldstein was no hothead, and his organization, the Synagogue Council of America, was a mood of respectability. He stood on firm ground when he charged that the "victims are not being rescued because the democracies do not want them." [80]
The Bermuda Conference was executed according to plan. Thereafter, when the State Department received appeals for action to save Jews, it issued this stock answer:
This ruse undoubtedly lessened public pressure to some extent. But another result of the Bermuda Conference, one not planned by the diplomats, hurt the rescue cause much more severely. In late June, Breckinridge Long observed that "the refugee question has calmed down" and "the pressure groups have temporarily withdrawn from the assertion of pressure." He concluded that the conference's pretense at careful consideration of all possibilities for action had quieted the clamor for rescue. But he was wrong. Proponents of rescue were not deceived by that trick. What had subdued them was the Anglo-American demonstration of utter callousness. It had smashed hope and made continued efforts seem futile. The calm was that of despair. [82]
Reinbold Niebuhr and other Christian leaders warned President Roosevelt of the "deep pessimism" that had taken hold among ''wise and well informed" Jewish leaders. Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, national chairman of the United Palestine Appeal and a foremost Zionist, observed that "our fortunes were never so low." Morris D. Waldman, a leader of the American Jewish Committee and an active participant in the Joint Emergency Committee, wrote in despair that "nothing will stop the Nazis except their destruction. The Jews of Europe are doomed whether we do or don't." [83]
Although one cannot calculate the number of Jewish victims of the Bermuda Conference's inaction, one death was clearly related to that event. Szmul Zygielbojm, a Jewish Socialist member of the Polish National Council, committed suicide in London two weeks after the conference ended. In June 1942, Zygielbojm had attempted to focus worldwide attention on the Jewish Labor Bund report from Poland, the first alarm to signal the annihilation of Europe's Jews. In the months that followed, he had persisted in pressing the Allied governments to act. Despondent over the failure of his own efforts and the inaction at Bermuda, he took his own life. In one of his final letters, he wrote:
As Zygielbojm wrote, the Nazi campaign to extinguish the Jewish revolt in Warsaw neared its end. The Warsaw ghetto had erupted on April 19, the day the Bermuda Conference began. Two days later, a secret Polish transmitter flashed news of the ghetto battle. But it was cut off after four sentences, ending with the words "Save us." Monitored in Stockholm, the appeal was radioed around the world. It reached London and Washington but was barely noticed. It was certainly not heard in Bermuda. [84]
Not long afterward, Jewish Frontier searched for the meaning of the three events, the ghetto revolt, the suicide, and the Bermuda Conference: "The Warsaw ghetto has been 'liquidated.' Leaders of Polish Jewry are dead by their own hand. And the world which looks on passively is, in its way, dead too." [86]
(For additional information on the Bermuda Conference, see appendix A.)
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[b]Notes:[/b]
[i] During 1940, Long had become the Roosevelt administration's chief policymaker in matters concerning European refugees. This had occurred not through design but because the Visa Division, the arm of the State Department then most involved in refugee affairs, was within his administrative jurisdiction. Starting in 1942, as information about the massive destruction of Jews came out of Europe, the State Department's Division of European Affairs was drawn into the refugee issue. Although not under Long's authority, it worked closely with him in determining the American government's response to the Holocaust.
[ii] Its inaccuracy is proven in my book Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis, 1938-1941, especially chapters 8 and 9, and in chapter 7 of this book.
[iii] The reference to the internment of prisoners of war had been urged by Wallace Murray, a State Department adviser on political relations. Murray also suggested that American public opinion "be rallied to provide support for the Government in resisting a deluge of refugees which, added to the number of internees now being supported, would aggravate the already critical food situation." (In fact, despite the rationing of some goods, food was abundant in the United States during World War II.) [7]
[iv] In May, after approving its final recommendations, Roosevelt again asked Hull about he background and purpose of the conference. [18]
[v] Congressman Samuel Dickstein would have been as logical a choice as Bloom. Dickstein had long been chairman of the House Committee on Immigration and had a thorough knowledge of American and world immigration issues. But Dickstein was not subservient to the State Department. He offered his services as delegate or observer, but was turned down. [24]
[vi] Evacuation of refugees could have been suspended when ships were needed for the wounded or POWs. Most ships that moved military forces and supplies across the Atlantic returned to the United States empty. And neutral shipping, especially by Portuguese and Spanish lines, was available throughout the war. [40]
[vii] Both the State Department and the British had negotiated with Germany and continued to do so throughout the war. They discussed a variety of issues, including exchanges of prisoners of war, exchanges of civilian nationals caught in enemy territory, and even attempts to arrange safe-conduct for refugee-evacuation ships. [43]
[viii] Actually, far more neutral shipping was available than this. [50]
[ix] Almost another year passed before the camp went into operation. Ultimately, it provided a haven for only 630 refugees. As a Quaker relief worker noted, it "hardly made a ripple" on the problem in Spain. Yet, in the end, the camp constituted the Bermuda Conference's only concrete contribution to the rescue of Jews. [59]
[x] They took no chances on this score. They showed the report to the American technical expert George Backer only after he had signed an oath of secrecy. (Concerning Backer, see appendix A.) [67]
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