HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS IN SWITZERLAND AND HOLOCAUST MEMORY

Neutral Switzerland sustained the war without damage. As long as borders remained closed, refugees could only choose illegality. When the deportations of Jews to extermination camps began, Switzerland represented the last chance for Jewish refugees, thousands of whom were turned away at the border. Swiss authorities knew that Jewish refugees faced potential death after 1942. Whoever managed to enter Switzerland illegally was not turned away but rather detained in a camp. More than 50,000 refugees found asylum in Switzerland during the war, including 20,000 Jews, although it was only in July 1944 that Switzerland recognized that Jews should be granted asylum because of the persecution. Since the state didn’t support refugees until 1941, private welfare organizations paid all expenses. The Swiss Union of Jewish Welfare Organizations supported a heavy financial burden for many years, as did the 19,000-strong Swiss Jews and their umbrella organization, the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities. They received support from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.


The majority of Holocaust survivors in Switzerland were not Swiss at the time of their persecution. They came rather from the German Reich or other European countries, and as Jews were immediately targeted by Nazi persecution. A number of them survived concentration and extermination camps; others were saved by escaping or going into hiding. Most came to Switzerland after World War II. The fact that Holocaust survivors live in Switzerland only entered public consciousness at the time of the debate about dormant assets and the historical findings of the “Bergier historical commission” at the end of the 1990s. Since then, the political world and civil society have helped historical research move forward and get updated, and Holocaust memory has been strengthened. Switzerland’s commitment to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), founded in 1998 in Sweden, is one example. Besides the United States, Israel, Argentina and Canada, 27 European countries are part of this international body. Its goal is to explain what the Holocaust is, preserve its memory and encourage research into its causes, since the Holocaust shook the founding principles of Western civilization.


Nazi crimes were committed more than 70 years ago. However, genocides, “ethnic cleansings”, racism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia still exist today. To confront the Holocaust is to become aware of the grave dangers that threaten when nationalism, xenophobia and the discrimination against religious minorities questions the very principles of our democratic rule of law. In 2017 and 2018, Switzerland presides over the IHRA. Therefore the exhibition The Last Swiss Holocaust Survivors was conceived. It gives voice to the last Holocaust survivors and to their descendants.

Dr. Gregor Spuhler and Dr. Sabina Bossert

Archives of Contemporary History, ETH Zurich

BEARING WITNESS: MEMORY AND HISTORICAL EDUCATION

Holocaust survivors and their memories stand at the core of this exhibition. What can we learn from these witnesses?


The fear, the persecution and loss of loved ones have left deep and unhealable wounds in those who were then children and teenagers. These people bear scars that cannot be healed. The last goodbye, the last visual contact with a father, a mother, a sibling has marked their memories permanently. At the same time, the quotes show that the witnesses have tried to cope with their wounds in very different ways during the course of their lives.


The survivors know that they are exceptions. They were lucky, but they also feel that they don’t deserve this luck. The fact that they have survived, while their relatives were assassinated, is incomprehensible and remains a heavy burden for many.


The Holocaust – a genocide and a break with civilization that stands as an unfathomable dark spot in 20th-century history – becomes vivid and concrete in the reports given by witnesses. Their stories serve as evidence that the Holocaust is not indescribable nor inconceivable. It is the outcome of numerous events that developed over many years in various European places. It was not the work of a primitive society, but of a nation with great cultural history. The witnesses do not speak of barbarians or beasts, but of other people – people who tortured them horribly, who “only did their task”, who watched or looked away or tried to help.


For a long time, barely anyone listened to survivors. For years, even decades, many of them could not or did not want to speak about their persecution. Listening to them is a key aspect of our confrontation with the Holocaust. However, explaining the Holocaust is the mission of historical research, which looks in the eyes of victims, perpetrators and bystanders equally.

Dr. Gregor Spuhler

Contemporary Historical Archives, ETH Zurich