--- description: How Europe first dealt with the refugee crisis caused by World War II title: Europe's Migrant Crisis and the 1938 Evian Conference image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd16b709a76c039fe/6988631f196cf4538b037f95/evian.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [History](/section/history/) ## History Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Immigration](/tag/immigration/) ## Immigration Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # How Europe First Confronted Its Last Major Refugee Crisis ## Video: Know Right Now: U.S. To Take In 10,000 Syrian Refugees [Watch (HLS stream): Know Right Now: U.S. To Take In 10,000 Syrian Refugees](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/wEnyVXOx.m3u8) (1:01)  _Published 2015-09-10. Know Right Now: U.S. To Take in 10,000 Syrian Refugees_  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Sep 10, 2015 9:40 PM CUT  The English representative Lord Winterton delivering a speech at the Evian Conference in 1938 The English representative Lord Winterton delivering a speech at the Evian Conference in 1938Ullstein bild / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Sep 10, 2015 9:40 PM CUT This week, Europe’s migrant crisis appears to have reached what may be a turning point for the tens of thousands of displaced people currently making their way to and across the continent. On Tuesday, Germany [said](http://time.com/4025439/germany-migrant-crisis/ "undefined") it could potentially take up to half million people, and images spread of its citizens [welcoming](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/09/08/germany-europe-welcoming--refugees-migrants/71835040/ "undefined") migrants. On Wednesday, the president of the European Commission [asked](http://time.com/4026159/european-union-refugees/ "undefined") E.U. nations to agree to share responsibility for 160,000 refugees. And, on Thursday, President Obama [said](http://time.com/4029877/us-syrian-refugees "undefined") he hopes to let 10,000 Syrian refugees into the United States in the next year. The current migrant crisis is Europe’s [worst since World War II](http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/europe-faces-worst-migration-crisis-since-world-war-ii-2/ "undefined")—and the struggle to find places for migrants and refugees is just one more similarity with that earlier crisis. Just as the current migrant challenge has been bubbling up some time, it also took many years for the League of Nations-era world to find places for the refugees of the 1930s and ’40s. The first concerted effort to find homes for those displaced by Nazi aggression came in July of 1938, when 32 nations sent representatives to Evian, France, on the urging of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Germany had just recently annexed Austria, and it was obvious to all involved that many thousands of people—primarily Jews—would soon need new homes, if they did not already. As TIME noted that month, the conference got off to a bad start: though the opening speeches were lofty, it took a full two days to elect a president of the conference, as each attendee feared that his name would be thus linked with what would likely be failed attempt to solve the problem. “All nations present expressed sympathy for the refugees but few offered to allow them within their boundaries,” TIME [reported](http://time.com/vault/issue/1938-07-18/page/18/ "undefined") near the beginning of the conference. “Britain, France, Belgium pleaded that they had already absorbed their capacity, Australia turned in a flat ‘No’ to Jews, and the U. S. announced that she would combine her former annual Austrian immigration quota with her German to admit 27,370 persons (who can support themselves) from Greater Germany next year.” The conference became mired in questions like whether the refugee effort should be associated with the existing League of Nations, and whether the answers arrived at would apply to any refugees in the future or just to those coming from Germany. By the time the conference adjourned, the 32 nations had set up an intergovernmental refugee committee, which would begin its work that August in London. At the time, however, the organization was seen as a screen that would allow the attendees to look like they had accomplished something: --- > “” --- Nearly a decade would pass before the foundation of the International Refugee Organization, which was then [replaced](http://time.com/4022123/refugee-history-migrant-crisis/ "undefined") in 1951 by the U.N.’s refugee commission. **_Read the full story from 1938 at the conclusion of the conference, here in the TIME Vault:_** [“Happy Augury”](http://time.com/vault/issue/1938-07-25/page/17/ "undefined") ### These Photos Show the Massive Scale of Europe’s Migrant Crisis  Syrian and Afghan refugees warm themselves and dry their clothes around a fire after arriving on a dinghy from the Turkish coast to the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos, early on Oct. 7, 2015. Muhammed Muheisen—AP  A migrant who recently arrived across the Mediterranean Sea from Turkey, watching a ferry in the port of Mytilene, Lesbos island, Greece, on Oct. 5, 2015. Zoltan Balogh—EPA  An Afghan wades to the shore after arriving in an overloaded rubber dinghy on the coast near Skala Sikaminias, Lesbos island, Greece, Oct. 1, 2015. Filip Singer—EPA  Syrian refugees are covered with life blankets upon arriving to the Greek island of Lesbos, after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey, on Sept. 28, 2015. Aris Messinis—AFP/Getty Images  Migrants and refugees arrive on Sykamia beach, west of the port of Mytilene, on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey, on Sept. 22, 2015. Iakovos Hatzistavrou—AFP/Getty Images  Migrants and refugees board a train by climbing through the windows as they try to avoid a police barrier at the station in Tovarnik, Croatia, on Sept. 20, 2015. Manu Brabo—AP  A Syrian refugee boy cries while he and his family try to board a train at the station in Tovarnik, Croatia, on Sept. 20, 2015. Manu Brabo—AP  A migrant holds his child during a clash with Hungarian riot police at the Horgos border crossing in Serbia, on Sept. 16, 2015. Sergey Ponomarev—The New York Times/Redux  Migrants sleep on a highway in front of a barrier at the border with Hungary near the village of Horgos, Serbia, on Sept. 16, 2015. Marko Djurica—Reuters  A wagon equipped with razor wire is placed at the border between Hungary and Serbia in Roszke, some 10 miles southeast from Budapest, Hungary, Sept. 14, 2015, to close the gap of the temporary border fence at the Horgos-Szeged railway line. Balazs Mohai—EPA  A refugee reacts from exhaustion while swimming towards the shore after a dinghy carrying Syrian and Afghan refugees before reaching the Greek island of Lesbos, on Sept. 13, 2015. Alkis Konstantinidis—Reuters  Syrian people sleep inside a greenhouse at a makeshift camp for asylum seekers near Roszke, southern Hungary, on Sept. 13, 2015. Muhammed Muheisen—AP  Syrian refugee Raed Alabdou, 24, holds his one-month old daughter Roa'a, while he and his wife hide in a field not to be seen by Hungarian policemen, after they crossed the Serbian-Hungarian border near Roszke, southern Hungary, on Sept. 11, 2015. Muhammed Muheisen—AP  Migrants and refugees beg Macedonian police to allow passage to cross the border from Greece into Macedonia during a rainstorm, near the Greek village of Idomeni, on Sept. 10, 2015. Yannis Behrakis—Reuters  Migrants run over a motorway from a collection point that had been set up to transport people to camps in Morahalom, Hungary, on Sept. 9, 2015. Dan Kitwood—Getty Images  A young Syrian man from Damascus tries to evade the Hungarian police by sneaking through a forest close to the Serbian border in Morahalom, Hungary, on Sept. 8, 2015. Dan Kitwood—Getty Images  Migrants cross into Hungary as they walk over railroad tracks at the Serbian border with Hungary in Horgas, Serbia, on Sept. 7, 2015. Dan Kitwood— Getty Images  A refugee from Syria prays after arriving on the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos aboard an inflatable dinghy across the Aegean Sea from Turkey, on Sept. 7, 2015. Angelos Tzortzinis—AFP/Getty Images  A migrant scrambles to climb back aboard a rubber dinghy full of his fellow Syrians as they try to cross from Turkey to the Greek islands on their way to claim asylum in the European Union, late on Sept. 6, 2015. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME  A Syrian migrant aboard a flimsy rubber motorboat hands his one-month-old baby to Greek coast guards, who have arrived to rescue the boat full of migrants from dangerous waters near the border between Greece and Turkey, early on Sept. 7, 2015. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME  A young Syrian boy is wrapped with a thermal blanket as he arrives with others at the coast on a dinghy after crossing from Turkey, at the island of Lesbos, Greece, on Sept. 7, 2015. Petros Giannakouris—AP  Refugees and migrants wait to cross the border from the northern Greek village of Idomeni to southern Macedonia, on Sept. 7, 2015. Giannis Papanikos—AP  Migrants walk along rail tracks as they arrive to a collection point in the village of Roszke, Hungary, on Sept. 6, 2015. Marko Djurica—Reuters  Migrant families ride a train from Gevgelija to the Serbian border in Macedonia, on Sept. 4, 2015. Dan Kitwood—Getty Images  Migrants crowd the bridge of the Norwegian Siem Pilot ship sailing along the Mediterranean sea, on Sept. 2, 2015. Gregorio Borgia—AP   A Turkish gendarme carries the body of Alan Kurdi, 3, who drowned along with his brother Galip, 5, and their mother, in a failed attempt to sail to the Greek island of Kos, in the coastal town of Bodrum, Turkey, on Sept. 2, 2015. Reuters  Dozens of refugee families, mostly from Syria, camped near the Keleti train station in Budapest, Hungary on Sept. 2, 2015. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME  A Syrian migrant bids farewell to the Hungarian volunteers who welcomed him upon his arrival in the European Union in Szeged, Hungary on Aug. 30, 2015. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME  A father of a migrants family is arrested by the local police near the village of Roszke on the Hungarian-Serbian border on Aug. 28, 2015. Attila Kisbender—AFP/Getty Images  Syrian migrants cross under a fence as they enter Hungary at the border with Serbia, near Roszke, on Aug. 27, 2015. Bernadett Szabo—Reuters  Hungarian soldiers install a wire fence at the border between Hungary and Serbia near Hercegszanto, 115 miles southeast from Budapest, on Aug. 25, 2015. Tamas Soki—EPA  A little girl from Syria looks out of a bus as the ferry she arrived in is reflected in the bus window at the port of Piraeus, Greece, on Aug. 25, 2015. Petros Giannakouris—AP  Children cry as migrants waiting on the Greek side of the border break through a cordon of Macedonian special police forces to cross into Macedonia, near the southern city of Gevgelija, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on Aug. 21, 2015. Georgi Licovski—EPA  Gendarmerie attempt to prevent people from entering the Eurotunnel terminal in Coquelles, Calais, France on July 30, 2015. Rob Stothard—Getty Images  Life vests and a deflated dinghy are seen on a beach on the Greek island of Kos, following the arrival of Afghan immigrants, on May 30, 2015. 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