The antisemitic measures adopted by Nazi Germany sought to force Jews out of the country. During the early years, a minority chose to emigrate to neighboring countries, while others selected more distant destinations (see Graph 1).
By 1938, the migration crisis had accelerated. In response to this situation, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt convened the Évian Conference, held in July of that year. The meeting brought together representatives from 32 countries, including Argentina. However, the conference ended without concrete agreements or collective commitments to receive refugees, and was therefore widely interpreted as a diplomatic and moral failure in the face of the humanitarian emergency.
Argentina participated through its delegate Tomás Le Breton, but, like most of the countries present, avoided making specific commitments to expand the admission of Jewish refugees. Although Argentina expressed its willingness to receive “agricultural workers or artisans,” it maintained the existing consular restrictions and did not substantially modify its immigration policy.
The case of the Dominican Republic was the only partial exception at Évian. The country offered to receive up to 100,000 Jewish refugees, while also seeking to improve its international image. However, the project remained very limited in scope: although thousands of visas were issued, only a few hundred refugees ultimately settled in Sosúa.
Throughout the 1930s, Argentina tightened its criteria for admitting immigrants in a context shaped by the effects of the global economic crisis. The clearest example was Circular 11, a directive issued during the same week as the Évian Conference by the General Directorate of Migration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship.
This document secretly instructed Argentine consulates in Europe to deny or obstruct visas for individuals considered “undesirable” or expelled from their countries of origin. Although European Jews continued to enter Argentina through both legal and illegal channels, it has not been possible to determine how many potential refugees were denied asylum because of this measure.
After the war, Circular 11 did not decisively shape Argentine immigration policy. Nevertheless, its formal persistence revealed the continuation of discriminatory regulations within the state apparatus. Only in 2005 was the circular officially repealed by the Argentine government.
