Swiss Review 4/2021

Swiss Review / August 2021 / No.4 18 Society SUSANNE WENGER At the end of May, five organisations – including the Orga- nisation of the Swiss Abroad (OSA) – presented the Federal Council with a detailed plan for the creation of amemorial site in the city of Berne. They said that the purpose of the site was to remember Swiss whom the Nazi regime “perse- cuted, disenfranchised or murdered for being Jewish, for being political opponents, or for other reasons”. Themonu- ment would also be dedicated to those who resisted the Nazis or offered protection or help to people who were per- secuted. Furthermore, it would commemorate the unfor- tunate men, women and children whom the Swiss autho- rities refused to rescue. Some 150 initial signatories (including numerous cele- brities) and 30 organisations have given their backing to the proposal. There are already a number of private com- memorative plaques etc. around the country. For example, “Stolpersteine” (stumbling stones) were laid at the end of last year. These brass square plaques affixed on top of cu- boid concrete blocks – alreadywell known inGermany and France – were installed into the pavement in front of the former homes of several Swiss victims in Zurich. “But now is the time for us to have an official monument funded by the federal government,” says OSA President Remo Gysin. Remembering the horrors It is important to preserve the memory of the unimagin- able horrors of the Holocaust and Nazi terror in Switzer- land too, not least with an eye to the younger generation, says Ralph Lewin, president of the Swiss Federation of Je- wish Communities. In addition to an aesthetic public me- morial, the aim is to include an educational and informa- tion programme that can also be accessed online. This is because therewasminimal public awareness of there being any Swiss Nazi victims until a fewyears ago, whereas recent research shows that around 1,000 people with Swiss connections suffered in concentration camps, of whom more than 200 were killed. Zurich social democrat Albert Mülli (1916–1997) survi- ved the Dachau concentration camp. He had smuggled pamphlets to Vienna in 1938. On being liberated from Dachau, Mülli was told by the Swiss authorities that he had “only himself to blame”. It all took its toll –overwhelming him as he got older, as Mülli’s daughter Ursula Zellweger recalls. “It is high time that the Swiss government ack- Preventing words from turning into deeds again Switzerland intends to create a national memorial to the victims of the Nazis. Politicians have responded favourably to a proposal put together by a handful of organisations – a project group that also aims to combat current-day prejudice and exclusion. Forgotten Swiss victims In a book published at the end of 2019, three journalists from Ger- man-speaking Switzerland looked at the fate of Swiss concentration camp prisoners, of whom most were expatriates (see edition 1/2021 of “Swiss Review”). An updated version of this much-noted book is now available in French. “After the book came out, readers contacted us to give us information on previously omitted Swiss cases,” says co-author Benno Tuchschmid. The sources were compiled and verified, and the supplemented book now covers 749 Nazi victims with Swiss connec- tions. One of the new additions is Henryka Sigmann, a Jewish woman who, along with her husband and two of her five children, was arrested in the Netherlands and deported to Auschwitz, where she was murde- red in 1943. Eugène Edouard Scheuch died at Gusen concentration camp in 1945 after being arrested two years previously in France for unlawful possession of firearms. “Les victimes oubliées du 3e Reich” (The forgotten victims of the Third Reich). By Balz Spörri, René Staubli and Benno Tuchschmid. Editions Alphil, 384 pages. CHF 29, EUR 25. Available from October 2021. Remembering also means putting names and faces to the victims – Albert Mülli was imprisoned at Dachau concentration camp. Photo: Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv