South of France, where he met an Albanian diplomat, Chatin Sarachi, a member of one of Albania's leading Roman Catholic families. For the previous five years, Sarachi had been First Secretary at the Albanian Embassy in London. Churchill raised with him the possibility of allowing German and Austrian Jews to enter Albania. Six weeks later, Sarachi, having just returned to London from Albania, wrote to Churchill that he had been ' authorized to negotiate in case the question still exists' .47 Sarachi's hopeful letter was written on March 13. Within six weeks, Mussolini had invaded and conquered Albania, ending its independence, and ending the possibility of any Albanian Government rescue scheme. On 14 December 1938, Robert Small bones, the British Consul-General in Frankfurt who had been so shocked by what he had seen and heard since Kri tallnacht, and so active in devising schemes of rescue, wrote to the British Embassy in Berlin: ' As far as i po ible to mitigate the plight of the Jews in Germany, I venture to think that the policy indicated at present is not "women and children fir t," but men
first~
they are in the
concentration camp and in imminent danger of death, and they are the potential bread-winners. If they die the problem of dealing with their familie will be all the more formidable. I gather that orne of the Quaker wi sh to put up an organization 47 hatin arachi to Winston . hurchill, 13 March 1939: Foreign Office papers, FO 371/24081 . Publi hed in Martin Gilbert, Win (on . hurchill, ompanion (document) Volume V, Part 3, The oming of War, 1936- 1939. London: Heinemann, 1982, page 1389.
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