[4.6. Hostile
European governments - the negative
propaganda from Nazi Berlin against Jewish refugees is "successful"]
[Since 1934 approx.: European
governments are indifferent and partly hostile to German Jewish
refugees]
Besides trying to find places of refuge for Germany's Jews, McDonald
saw that his main task was to ease the fate of those German (p.148)
Jewish refugees who were now in European countries. There he
encountered governmental indifference - sometimes even hostility - that
nullified much of his work.
[European governments want to get
rid of the German Jewish refugees by McDonalds!]
He was perfectly aware that the governments saw in him a means of
getting rid of the refugees.
(End note 31: WAC, Box 316 (d), McDonald to Warburg, 8/16/34 [16
August 1934])
[Nov 1934: McDonalds reports high
charges for documents and no work permission for Jewish refugees]
At a meeting of the governing body of the High Commission in early
November 1934 he chided the governments for harrying the refugees,
making them pay exorbitant sums for official papers, and especially for
refusing them the right to work. He tried to prove to them that they
would only gain by allowing refugees to enter their countries and work
there.
[Since 1933: Hitler regime makes
propaganda against refugees in whole Europe - and governments let
starve the refugees]
However, German anti-Jewish and antirefugee propaganda had obviously
been successful, and had "made the position of the refugees more
uncertain in some countries and their admission more difficult in
others."
(End note 32: JDC Library, London meeting of governing body, 11/1-2/34
[1-2 November 1934])
