Page "Évian Conference" Paragraph 14

In July 1979, Walter Mondale described the hope represented by the Evian conference :" At stake at Evian were both human lives – and the decency and self-respect of the civilized world.

If each nation at Evian had agreed on that day to take in 17, 000 Jews at once, every Jew in the Reich could have been saved.

As one American observer wrote, ' It is heartbreaking to think of the ... desperate human beings ... waiting in suspense for what happens at Evian.

But the question they underline is not simply humanitarian ... it is a test of civilization.

'"