Beyond Belief (37 page)

Bermuda Parley Draws

Pattern for Refugee Aid

The
St. Louis Post Dispatch
also gave readers a feeling of progress:

Refugee Conferees'

Plan Taking Shape
⁴⁴

As the conference proceeded, both London and Washington knew that the delegates would be “under heavy pressure to disclose” the conference's recommendations after it was over. In order to avert what the Secretary of State described in a telegram to Bermuda as the “adverse press and public criticism which may follow the withholding of information,” delegates told the press that nothing could be said because “Hitler will, if possible distort to his own purposes efforts of the conference.” The delegates' silence was also explained as resulting from “anxiety lest premature publicity nullify the proposed steps.” In his telegram to the conference, Hull explained that he would not have raised the issue of the public's disappointment if information was withheld at the end of the meeting “were it not considered of real importance from the point of view of public relations not only for the delegation but for the Department itself.”

The British were equally sensitive to how Bermuda and Allied government actions might appear to the public. They agreed that a small number of refugees be removed from Spain to North Africa so that neutral Spain would not be blocked as an escape route. Their main impetus for considering the transfer of these refugees out of Spain was that if they did not do this, world “public opinion” would conclude that there was no “serious endeavor
to deal with the refugee problem.” Toward the end of the conference the chairman of the American delegation, Harold W. Dodds, fearful of public reaction to the conference, cabled Long urging that the British proposal for the removal of Jewish refugees from Spain to a camp somewhere in North Africa be seriously considered. It was important that this be done because this would “impress public opinion as matching British measures which otherwise will monopolize attention.” The only concrete result of Bermuda was the transfer—over a year after Bermuda ended—of 630 refugees to a North African camp.
⁴⁵

Long after the meeting's conclusion, whenever the lack of concrete results was mentioned, the official explanation continued to be that “the most strategic work of the conference could not be made public for security reasons.”
⁴⁶
In the short run, whether for lack of information or just loss of interest in the issue, when the conference ended the
New York Herald Tribune
, which had placed the story regarding its opening on page 1, ran the story on page 8. The
New York Times
, which had also placed the opening story on page 1, carried this news on page 9. The
New York World Telegram
put it on page 27. Other papers followed suit.
⁴⁷

If the framers of the Bermuda conference intended to “pull off a propaganda coup,” they did not meet with total success: critics charged that Bermuda was designed to quiet public criticism, not save lives. While the gathering was still underway, Ida Landau, the Overseas News Agency representative at Bermuda, described it as “floundering in its own futility” as the delegates “pursue their deliberations in an attitude of doleful defeatism.” She suggested that they might “better go home” where they could make a “better contribution to the war effort by puttering in their victory gardens.”
⁴⁸
Freda Kirchwey considered Bermuda a “farce” devoted to formulation of excuses for the failure of Britain and America to “do anything effective.” It was an “excuse for inaction.”
⁴⁹
Congressman Emanuel Celler condemned the meeting as a “puppet show” in which even the “strings were visible.”
⁵⁰
He believed that his prediction that Bermuda would “labor and bring forth a mouse” was justified.
⁵¹
Even the
Christian Science Monitor
expressed some disappointment in Bermuda, which it described as “essentially a political meeting,” and noted the absence of those most familiar with the refugees' situation—the representatives of refugee relief agencies such as the Red Cross, the American Friends Service Committee, and the Joint Distribution Committee.
Even the final press communiqué, the
Christian Science Monitor
wryly noted, “said as little as it was possible to say in 300 words.”
⁵²

The
New York Herald Tribune
believed that Bermuda had been characterized by a false compassion. This was an “empty sentiment” because it neither eased the lot of those already suffering nor “avert[ed] any like suffering.” The
New York Post
demanded that the unallocated immigrant quotas for that year be used for refugees. The
Boston Globe
described the news on Bermuda's accomplishments as “not encouraging.” It called upon the British Foreign Office and American State Department to recognize the “rescue of victims of Hitlerism [as] one of the things for which the people of the United Nations are fighting.” Celler termed the conference a “blooming fiasco.”
The New Republic
declared it “simply not true” that nothing could be done for the Jews until Hitler was defeated.
⁵³

The Jewish community was in the forefront of the ranks of the critics. After the conference Wise called the meeting a “tragic disappointment,” and the Bergson group placed full-page ads condemning Allied inaction. One ad stretched across six columns of the
New York Times
and carried the following headline:

TO
5,000,000
JEWS IN THE NAZI DEATH-TRAP BERMUDA WAS A “CRUEL MOCKERY
”

Both the “mainstream” and Bergson factions had proposed different rescue alternatives, including revision of American immigration laws, permission for “a reasonable number of victims” to enter England, immediate consideration of havens in British territories, revision of Latin American regulations which made it difficult for Jews to enter the countries there, the opening of Palestine, the creation of something like the “Nansen” passport system which had been in operation after World War I for refugees and stateless people, and the establishment of an intergovernmental agency with “full authority . . . to save the remaining millions of Jewish people.”
⁵⁴

The most sustained press criticism came from PM and its foreign news editor, Alexander Uhl. Even before the conference opened,
PM
found it a cause for disappointment because it was exploratory, no Jewish organizations were invited, it was being held in a place which was inaccessible to the press, and it had
been too long delayed in getting started. When the conference organizers claimed that even the most general information had to be kept from the press because it might be of use to the Germans or “embarrass negotiations with other countries,” Uhl observed, “it is unlikely that the Conference will pull anything out of its hat that will embarrass anyone.”
⁵⁵
After the meeting, on May 2, Uhl accused the State Department of not being interested in “getting too deeply involved in this refugee problem.”
⁵⁶
His final word on the meeting came on May 9: “Never was there a conference with so many good reasons, so eloquently and patriotically presented, to do so little.” Moreover, Uhl recognized that those who criticized or asked the delegates embarrassing questions were on the defensive. “You had the strange feeling that . . . somehow you weren't being a very good American.”
⁵⁷

Not all the articles on the gathering's close were so pessimistic. The
New York Times
headline offered a different impression:

HOPEFUL HINT ENDS
BE
RMUDA SESSIO
NS

Communique Says Substantial

Number of Refugees May

Obtain Relief as Result
⁵⁸

The
Chicago Tribune
was also convinced that the conference had accomplished its goals. Its page 1 headline left little doubt:

End Refugee Parley;

Agree on Aid Plans
⁵⁹

Although the conference met with criticism, it succeeded in at least temporarily lessening the “considerable pressure” of demands for action. As the months passed, fewer editorials calling for rescue appeared in the press, and the general clamor for action was no longer as audible. After the first flurry of criticism about the absence of results, the press accepted with little more comment the official explanation that nothing could be done until victory. There were those who perceived of Bermuda as a “valuable contribution towards post-war planning and a lasting peace,” while others simply were convinced that all that could be done was being done.
⁶⁰
In June staunch anti-immigrationist Breckinridge Long observed that the “refugee question has calmed down. The pressure
groups have temporarily withdrawn from the assertion of pressure.”
⁶¹
Though the Jewish community and long-time critics like
The New Republic, The Nation, PM
, and the
New York Post
were not silenced, the press in general seemed satisfied by the official explanations given. Most newspapers and other periodicals did not question Britain or America's commitment to rescue. It would be over six months before Washington would be compelled to act and establish the War Refugee Board. By then the tragedy would have reached far greater proportions.

The terrible futility which characterized Bermuda was graphically illustrated by two headlines that appeared next to each other in the April 20 issue of the
New York Journal American:

A similar juxtaposition was to be found on the front page of the
New York Herald Tribune:

The annihilation was proceeding with unbridled ferocity; the details were emerging. But rescue was “far off.”

On April 22 a small article appeared on the front page of the
New York Times
. Though there was little this conference could have done to aid the particular group of Jews involved, their plight was a consequence of the kind of futility which was at the heart of Bermuda:

SECRET POLISH RADIO ASKS AID, CUT OFF

Stockholm, Sweden, April 21—The secret Polish radio appealed for help tonight in a broadcast from Poland and then suddenly the station went dead. The broadcast, as heard here, said: “The last 35,000 Jews in the ghetto at Warsaw have been condemned to execution. Warsaw again is echoing to musketry volleys.

“The people are murdered. Women and children defend themselves with their naked arms.

“Save us . . .”
⁶³

This sudden front-page attention quickly faded, and the next day the story of the battle in the ghetto was on page 9, despite the fact that it described how the Nazis were forced to use tanks against the ghetto fighters and noted that the battle was reported to be costing many German lives. Two weeks later a report that the battle had been going on for seventeen days as Jews “fighting against annihilation” had “converted their homes into forts” was contained in 29 lines on page 7. Even the reported toll of 60 Nazis killed during the uprising was on page 6. Whereas other reports of resistance usually generated excitement and attention, this story did not.
⁶⁴

A year later on the anniversary of the uprising the
New York Times
devoted an editorial to the Warsaw ghetto uprising. In it it spoke of the “profound respect” due the ghetto fighters, who “set for the rest of us an example of courage that history can scarcely match.” It seems strange that the paper, which now found them such an “inspiration,” did not pay too much attention while the battle was underway.
⁶⁵

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