© 2000, Chris Geidner

The U.S. policy on refugees during the Holocaust can best be described through the New York Times' editorializing of one of the two major refugee conferences of the time as "do-nothing." It also can be clearly seen as an evolution of our policies on immigration in America from as early as 1881.

Over the course of the last 20 years of the 19^th century, U.S. immigration policy tightened to a point where it was quite restrictive. Important during World War II among the many groups excluded from immigration were convicts, those likely to become a public charge (LPC) and those who were being brought over as contract laborers.

Between 1920 and 1924 U.S. immigration levels were reduced to a limit of greater than 153,000 -- and was set at 1890 census proportional levels by country of national origin. This left 8,000 Polish immigration spots and a few hundred Hungarian immigrants allowed per year.

As Nazis rose to power, the American Jewish Congress, led by Steven Wise, leads a boycott of German goods in 1933, which is quickly ended after a different group of Jews -- the Warburgs -- visit President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and tell him (via German Jews' requests) that things aren't all that bad in German.

By 1937 the immigration problems had expanded. However, due to the U.S. regulations, few Jews were able to make it into the U.S. The criminal record prohibition excluded those who had been released from concentration, or labor, camps. The LPC prohibition excluded many Jews since they were not allowed to take any wealth with them out of Nazi territory. The contract labor prohibition then cut off those who could show that they would not become a public charge through a guaranteed job offer in America. This left many Jews stuck in Germany, and beyond, as the Nazis rose to power.

An American attempted to help throughout this time by heading up the High Commissioner's Office at the League of Nations working on refugee issues. He resigned after one year due to the difficulties of the job.

In response to the Anschluss President Roosevelt called on the International Conference of Refugees in 1938 at Evian, France. The U.S. delegation was headed up by Myron Taylor, the former head of U.S. Steel. The U.S. was unwilling to do anything to change their immigration policies and, along with France and Britain, stated they had already done enough to help the plight of refugees. Other nations then fell in line, and the conference was a failure.

The Intergovernmental Commission of Refugees (IGCR) is formed to attempt to deal with the question of refugees and it's head -- Rublee, an American -- was trying to find a way to get all of the Jewish refugees in Germany out of the increasingly restrictive country. Failing to find a way to solve the problem, Rublee resigns.

Soon enough the U.S. had another opportunity to help the plight of refugees when the St. Louis, a luxury liner, had been charted from Germany to Cuba and was refused landing permits at Cuba by Batista. The U.S., again led by Secretary of State Hull and President Roosevelt, order the U.S. Coast Guard to keep the ship from port. Over two-thirds of the 907 passengers die, including many in Auschwitz.

On April 19, 1943, at the Bermuda Conference on Refugees, the U.S. was given a third historic chance to aid in saving the lives of Jewish refugees. In 1942, at first through a letter to Rabbi Wise of the American Jewish Conference and later through Sumner Welles' November confirmation statement, the U.S. finds out of Nazi plans for the mass extermination of the Jews. Princeton President Dodds is appointed to head up the conference, and is told that he is to nothing with the U.S. immigration policy. It is this conference that is editorialized by the New York Times as a "do-nothing conference." The major accomplishment of this conference is the revival of the IGCR.

A Polish-Jewish leader perhaps best summed up U.S. (and the Bermuda Conference) treatment of refugees in his statement on May 12, 1943 that our country and the others were "indifferent to the killings of hapless men."

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