Book Review: How the World Allowed Hitler to Proceed with the Holocaust by Tony Matthews

About:

How the World Allowed Hitler to Proceed with the Holocaust: Tragedy at Évian by Tony Matthews takes a look at the international 1938 conference in Évian-les-Bains. Representatives from all over the world came together to especially discuss the possible emigration of European Jews. Mr. Matthews is a published historian specializing in Australian, as well as world history.

• 256 pages
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pen and Sword Military
  
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1399006398

My rat­ing for How the World Allowed Hitler to Proceed with the Holocaust — 5
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Thoughts:

Not as famous as the conference between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, The Intergovernmental Committee for Political Refugees meeting met in France, July 1938 to discuss an international cooperative specifically to solve the massive refugee crisis caused by the Nazis. Mr. Matthews reviews both official and unofficial policies of the countries involved, as well as the failure of the conference. Of course, feel the reverberations of that failure to this day.

The nations rejected the pleas of the Jewish communities; indeed condemning them to a prolonged death at the hands of the Nazis. The outcome of the Évian, undeniably set the stage for the murder of millions of people by giving Nazi Germany the signal that the civilized Western nations will not stand in their way.

I am not a historian, but reading between the lines of How the World Allowed Hitler to Proceed with the Holocaust: Tragedy at Évian by Tony Matthews , it seemed to me that the conference was set up to fail, its value only in propaganda. President Roosevelt, while sympathetic, wouldn’t expend any political capital on this unpopular domestic, and political issue.

Sadly, not much has changed, as the influx of refugees due to the brutality of ISIS in the Middle East has shown. The reasoning for not helping them are eerily familiar, and the right-wing policies across Europe and the US show xenophobia is still alive and well. Argentina, for example, steadily refuse to accept any refugees, but had no issues allowing ex-Nazis take residence after World War II.

Reflecting on the past is always important. The issue of how the world simply sat back and let millions of people get murdered, a genocide, is something we need to face.

Mr. Matthews takes the time to highlight the stories of several very brave individuals who risked their lives helping the Jewish people. These are few of many, and their stories don’t get told nearly as often.

Buy The How the World Allowed Hitler to Proceed with the Holocaust from Amazon.com*
More Books by Tony Mattews*

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer: I got this book for free.
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account, the money is usually spent on books