Évian Conference

This has been an extraordinary country as it moved from its whites-only policy.

And by the way, even before the war, the Australian delegate in 1938 to the Evian Conference in France, which was the intergovernmental conference to discuss the refugee problem in Europe caused by Hitler, he very famously said in 1938, "We have no racial problem in Australia, and we have no desire to import one." That was Australia then.

As Jews came here in large numbers, Holocaust survivors, they thought they had found the second Promised Land, and w- I could believe them.

And in the 1970s when Jews were coming out of the Soviet Union, uh, sometimes quickly and sometimes painfully slowly because of restrictions, I was working in Europe, in Rome and Vienna, with that movement, and I was helping those who wanted to go to Australia to come because the Australian Embassy in Rome was not prepared and didn't have Russian speakers, and I spoke Russian.

And in this country, we have, you know, some real examples of that.

You know, we know that, I mean, of course, there was anti-Semitism before World War II, but we have this sort of paradigmatic statement by Australia's representative to the Evian Conference in 1938, which was a time, of course, when many Jewish people were trying to flee Nazi Germany.

And he said, Australia's representative, Australia doesn't have a racial problem and we're not desirous of importing one.

Speaking of the Jews.

What Chamberlain said about the Jews.

come from Australia, I could show you what was said in the Evian Conference on July 6, 1938.

We don't have an ethnic problem.

We don't want to import one.