Erwartungen an Évian

The historian Martin Jost will present his recently published monograph on the 1938 Évian Conference and Jewish positions on refugee policy on Tuesday, March 25 at 6 pm. The event takes place as part of »Leipzig liest« at the Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture - Simon Dubnow in Leipzig, admission is free. 

The Évian Conference in July 1938 was a significant diplomatic event. On the basis of contemporary documents of Jewish organizations, Martin Jost opens a new perspective on this international refugee conference and the expectations it engendered: Initially, the Jewish emissaries regarded the negotiations that took place at Lake Geneva and the establishment of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees as a hope-inspiring prelude and as a realistic means of enabling emigration for those being persecuted under National Socialism. Only once the war broke out and in the face of the unprecedented politics of annihilation that followed did their assessment change. Évian would go down in historical memory as a missed opportunity to save Europe’s Jews.

Erwartungen an Évian. Jüdische Positionen zur Flüchtlingspolitik 1938
Martin Jost in conversation with Kim Wünschmann 
Tuesday, 25 March 2025, 6 p.m.
Dubnow Institute, Leipzig

Further information on the publication