Within weeks of hearing Moutet’s comments, the Polish government initiated negotiations with the French to explore the possibility of sending Polish Jews to Madagascar.  The French responded positively to the Poles and on the 5th of May 1937 a joint Polish-French Commission under the direction of Mieczyslaw B. Lepecki left Marseilles for Madagascar. During the weeks that the Lepecki Commission was in Madagascar, it studied several regions on the island to determine how many people could viably live there.  The commission then returned to Europe and in October 1937 Lepecki published a 250 page report detailing his findings. Lepecki’s report concluded that the Madagascar solution was not feasible.  Not only would the cost of transporting Jewish families be exorbitant (some 30,000 francs per family) Lepecki concluded that the island could only support between 40,000 and 60,000 Polish-Jewish refugees.  Polish Jewry alone comprised over three million people.  Sending 60,000 Jews to Madagascar, therefore, would not solve the Jewish problem in Poland and it would bankrupt the state treasury.[46]

The Madagascar Plan wasn’t implemented. After the Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, Germany didn’t consider the Plan and adopted the final solution to solve the Jewish problem and “liquidated most of European Jewry in death camps they located in occupied Poland.”[47]

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is possible to claim that official anti-Semitism lawfully adopted as national and governmental policy in Hungary and Poland represents one of the most infamous aspects of our recent contemporary history. It is very clear that the leaders of those countries (in particular Horthy) can be regarded and absolutely considered as forerunners of the German Nazis.

Because of this fact, the role of Hungary and Poland, in spite of their small sizes, were very important in the history of the international affairs of the twentieth century. It is possible to state, without a doubt, that the racist policy adopted by Hungarian and Polish governments created a new era of instability and prejudice against minorities (not only Jews) that can be considered a marked tendency of the European continent during the inter-war period and the following decades.

Bibliography

Books

Braham, Randolph, The Politics of Genocide. The Holocaust in Hungary (2 Vols.) New York, Columbia University Press, 1981.

Checinski, Michael, Poland, Communism, Nationalism, Anti-Semitism, New York, Karz-Cohl Publishers, 1982.

Davies, Norman, God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Vol. 2, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982.

Dawidowicz, Lucy S., The War Against the Jews, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975.

Hilberg, Raul, The Destruction of the European Jews, New York, London, Holmes & Meier, 1985.

Lendvai, Paul, Anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, London, Macdonald and Co., 1972.

Lindemann, Albert S., Anti-Semitism before the Holocaust, Harlow, Longman, 2000.

Lukacs, John, Budapest 1900: a Historical Portrait of a City and its Culture, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989.

McCagg, William O., A history of Habsburg Jews, 1670-1918, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1989.

Melzer, Emanuel, No Way Out: The Politics of Polish Jewry, 1935-1939, Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College Press, 1965.

Modras, Ronald E., The Catholic Church and Anti-Semitism: Poland, 1933-1939. Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994.

Poliakov, Lèon, A History of Anti-Semitism, London : Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985.

Sachar, Howard M., The Course of Modern Jewish History, London, Weidenfeld, 1990.

Slezkine, Yuri, The Jewish Century, Princeton, N.J.,Woodstock, Princeton University Press, 2006.

Vital, David, A People Apart: The Jews in Europe 1789-1939, New York, Oxford University Press, 1999.

Articles

Gazeta Polska, 16 January 1937.

Documents

http://www.holocaust-history.org/

Websites

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/

http://web.ceu.hu/jewishstudies/

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/

http://www.math.psu.edu/

Notes

[1] http://web.ceu.hu/jewishstudies

[2] Modras Ronald E., The Catholic Church and Anti-Semitism: Poland, 1933-1939, Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994, p.7.

[3] Ibidem.

[4] http://www.math.psu.edu/glasner/moreshet/faith/node14.html

[5] http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0009_0_09319.html

[6] Braham Randolph, The Politics of Genocide. The Holocaust in Hungary (2 Vols.) New York, Columbia University Press, 198, p.18.

[7] http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0009_0_09319.html

[8] Ibidem.

[9] Ibidem.

[10] Ibidem.

[11] http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0009_0_09319.html

[12] http://www.math.psu.edu/glasner/moreshet/faith/node14.html

[13] Ibidem.

[14] Ibidem.

[15] Braham, Randolph, cit., pp.162-163.

[16] http://www.math.psu.edu/glasner/moreshet/faith/node14.html

[17] Ibidem.

[18] When Hitler was the leader of an anonymous political movement.

[19] http://www.math.psu.edu/glasner/moreshet/faith/node14.html

[20] Ibidem.

[21] Ibidem.

[22] Ibidem.

[23] Ibidem.

[24] Ibidem.

[25] Vital, David, A People Apart: The Jews in Europe 1789-1939, New York, Oxford University Press, 1999, pp.777-778.

[26] Also known as the Minorities Treaty.

[27] http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Total/Polish%20Antisemitism.htm

[28] Vital, David, cit., p.769.

[29] Ibidem.

[30] Ibidem.

[31] Ibidem.

[32] Melzer, Emanuel, No Way Out: The Politics of Polish Jewry, 1935-1939, Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College Press, 1965, p. 90.

[33] Ibidem.

[34] Ibidem.

[35] Editorialized Gazeta Polska on 16 January 1937.

[36] Melzer, Emanuel, cit., p.90.

[37] Ibidem.

[38] Ibidem.

[39] Ibidem.

[40] Ibidem.

[41] Ivi, p.91.

[42] http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Total/Polish%20Antisemitism.htm

[43] The idea of creating a Jewish colony in Madagascar had its roots in the writings of the racist and anti-Semitic thinker Paul de Lagarde. He had written in 1885 that Europe’s Jews should be resettled on Madagascar because it was an island and as an anti-Semite, Lagarde believed that the only way to curb Jewish influence in the world was to isolate Jews geographically. http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Total/Polish%20Antisemitism.htm

[44] http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Total/Polish%20Antisemitism.htm

[45] Ibidem.

[46] Ibidem.

[47] Ibidem.