The Évian Conference was convened by the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Évian-les-Bains, south of Lake Geneva, from 6 till 15 July 1938. At the conference representatives from 32 countries discussed the sharp rise in the emigration of German Jews and – above all – ways of channelling it more effectively.

Though the conference was called for human as well as political purposes not a single country offered to take in new refugees unconditionally. The Netherlands was willing to do so only under the condition that those who had already arrived would emigrate. Eventually, it became clear that the western democracies were not exactly queuing up to help Jews who were being marginalised by the Third Reich.

"After Evian.....", 1938 (NIOD 184156)

The absence of a clear decision led the Auswärtiges Amt to conclude that the conference had been convened mainly as a result of the Jewish smear campaign against Germany in the world press and because Roosevelt wanted to curry favour with the “Jewish powers on Wall Street” (Entry 380).