[4.17. Jewish
haven Switzerland 1933-1938 - mostly temporarily for
emigration overseas]
[No visa needed]
The position in Switzerland was in many ways unique [like
in Belgium]. There was no need to possess a visa to enter
the country, though identification papers were, of course,
demanded. Switzerland was interested (p.172)
in maintaining her tourist industry, and she also had a
strong tradition of granting asylum to political refugees.
[The right radical Front
parties provoke with anti-Jewish propaganda]
At the same time, however, there was a strong anti-Jewish
feeling in many of the more conservative parts of the
confederacy (Switzerland did not allow the general entry
of Jews into the country at large until 1866), and in
early 1933 the National Front, supported by the ex-chief
of staff of the Swiss army, revealed itself as a Nazi
group, its propaganda based largely on anti-Semitic
themes. In the autumn of 1933 the Swiss Nazis achieved
significant gains in cantonal and municipal elections.
Their propaganda provided the background for an action
brought in a Swiss court against the libelous
Protocols of the Elders of
Zion; ultimately the
Protocols were proved to be a forgery.
[And this propaganda is found legal in this "neutral"
state with it's bank secret also for all Nazis up to the
end...]
Swiss Jewry numbered about 18,000 persons in 1933.
(End note 86: Carl Ludwig: Die Flüchtlingspolitik der
Schweiz seit 1933 bis zur Gegenwart. Bericht an den
Bundesrat [The refugee policy of Switzerland since 1933 to
the present]; Zurich, no date [1957]), p.60)
[Swiss Israelite Federate
Corporation (Schweizerischer Israelitischer Gemeindebund
SIG) working for the German Jewish refugees - no money
from Joint Distribution Committee needed]
It was organized under the Schweizerischer Israelitischer
Gemeindebund (SIG), founded in 1904, and in the early
1930s its president was a member of one of the old Swiss
Jewish families, Jules Dreyfus-Brodsky. As in Holland, but
unlike the situation in France, the existence of a united
Jewish representation made work for refugees from Germany
considerably easier. An existing organization affiliated
with SIG, the Verein Schweizerischer Israelitischer
Armenpflegen (VSIA) undertook to care for the refugees.
Among the leaders of VSIA, a manufacturer from Saint-Gall,
Saly Mayer, soon stood out as a prominent personality in
the field of aid and rescue.
At the beginning a mass flight into Switzerland occurred,
largely of fairly well-to-do persons. It appears that from
April until September 1933 some 10,000 people, presumably
mostly Jewish, arrived in Switzerland via Basel alone.
(End note 87: Ibid. [Carl Ludwig: Die Flüchtlingspolitik
der Schweiz seit 1933 bis zur Gegenwart. Bericht an den
Bundesrat [The refugee policy of Switzerland since 1933 to
the present]; Zurich, no date [1957])], p.65)
As in other countries however, a high proportion of the
refugees returned to Germany before long. It seems that
the number of Jews who remained in Switzerland exceeded
5,000 in 1933, and the Swiss Jewish community collected
over 150,000 Swiss francs to support about a half of these
who were without means. Thus in 1933 no JDC help was
needed. (p.173)
(End note 88: SIG, Festschrift zum 50-jährigen Bestehen
[festschrift for 50 year jubilee]; Zurich, no date [1954],
p. 13 (Dr. Leo Littmann: 50 Jahre Gemeindebund [50 years
federate corporation])
[7 April 1933: Swiss
government refuses the status of "political refugee"]
The attitude of the Swiss government toward these refugees
was ambiguous. A police circular of April 20, 1933, based
on a government (Bundesrat) decision of April 7, declared
that Jews could be considered political refugees only if
they had actually been politically prominent personalities
in Germany; the general anti-Semitic actions of the Nazi
government did not entitle Jews to the status of political
refugees.
(End note 89: Carl Ludwig: Die Flüchtlingspolitik der
Schweiz seit 1933 bis zur Gegenwart. Bericht an den
Bundesrat [The refugee policy of Switzerland since 1933 to
the present]; Zurich, no date [1957]), p.55)
[31 March 1933: Swiss
government states Jewish refugees can stay only
temporarily]
A circular of March 31 defined what became standard Swiss
policy in the years thereafter: Jews could come to
Switzerland on a purely temporary basis, that is, provided
they undertook to leave the country again at the earliest
possible opportunity.
[Swiss population was helping the Jews getting visas for
overseas and got much money from the Jews for that. At the
same time Switzerland was the holiday center for the Nazis
in Davos (sanatorium) and Zurich (banks). Whole
Switzerland was covered with holiday houses for German
Nazi youth, and the right radicals were "prepared" with
future "Gauleiters" and sites were elected to establish
concentration camps when Hitler's army would come].
[Argument of the Swiss
government "Überfremdung" has no base - less than 0.5 %
Jews in Switzerland]
Two arguments were advanced against the settlement of Jews
in Switzerland: unemployment and the danger that the
country would be swamped by strangers
(Überfremdung). The
problem of unemployment was serious indeed, for in a
population of less than four million there were 68,000
unemployed in 1933 and 39,000 in 1936; the trade unions
objected strongly to the entry of additional workers into
labor's ranks, especially in the professions.
Yet the number of Jews trying to find work in Switzerland
was very small; the total Jewish population in Switzerland
amounted to less than 0.5 % of the Swiss people. The
Überfremdung argument was therefore based not so much on
facts as on prejudice. This was directed especially
against Jews from Eastern Europe, who were declared to be
alien to the Swiss way of life
(Wesensfremd).
[Supplement: There was a Jewish immigration 1918-1922 with
some Jews from Eastern Europe which really were not alien
to the Swiss way of life, and these were taken always as
an example for the propaganda].
It was true that the proportion of foreigners in
Switzerland was higher than in any other European country
(14.7 % in 1910 and 8.7 % in 1930), but the percentage of
Jews among these was infinitesimal.
(End note 90: Carl Ludwig: Die Flüchtlingspolitik der
Schweiz seit 1933 bis zur Gegenwart. Bericht an den
Bundesrat [The refugee policy of Switzerland since 1933 to
the present]; Zurich, no date [1957]), p.59-60)
[Work of SIG: Support the
Jewish refugees for further emigration]
SIG, faced with an extremely careful if not actually
hostile attitude on the part of the Swiss Ministry of
Justice and Police, therefore undertook to support any
refugees who might be without means, and tried its best to
keep the problem of Jewish refugees out of the public
view. It seems that Dreyfus-Brodsky took pains to make
clear to the Swiss authorities that while SIG was
interested in the entry of as many refugees as possible,
it was in agreement with the policy of trying to get them
to emigrate as quickly as was (p.174)
feasible.
(End note 91: Carl Ludwig: Die Flüchtlingspolitik der
Schweiz seit 1933 bis zur Gegenwart. Bericht an den
Bundesrat [The refugee policy of Switzerland since 1933 to
the present]; Zurich, no date [1957]), p.69; Ludwig shows
that this was not the only case when such statements were
made by Swiss Jewish leaders).
It is not clear whether this was said because it was
politically wise to say it, or whether fear of
anti-Semitism or other motives were at work. At any rate,
whereas SIG waged a public battle against Swiss
anti-Semitism and in 1936 became a member organization of
the World Jewish Congress, it made no attempt to try to
change the restrictive practices of the government by
political pressure or by direct or indirect intervention.
[Stateless Jews since
1934 - Swiss government allows refuge - refuge of
children is not allowed]
The federal government continued to waver between
restrictionism and a tendency to maintain the liberal
tradition of aid to refugees. When Germany began to deny
citizenship to an ever larger number of refugees, thus
making them into stateless persons, the Alien Police
Department [Abteilung der Fremdenpolizei] issued another
circular (on September 14, 1934), asking cantonal
authorities not to deny refuge to people simply because
they had become stateless; yet when the Swiss Emigrant
Children's Aid Organization (SHEK, [Schweizerisches
Hilfswerk für Emigrantenkinder]) asked the government to
allow emigrant children into the country, the reply was a
harsh negative.
[Since 1934: Document
quarrel about stateless German Jewish refugees -
convention 1937]
In the meantime [in 1934, when the Third Reich made the
German Jewish refugees abroad more and more to stateless
persons without nationality], international organizations
as well as governments were becoming concerned over the
problem of identity papers for refugees. MacDonald had
failed in his attempts to persuade the governments to
provide the refugees with special identity
documents. After his resignation in July 1936, a
conference took place under League of Nations auspices in
Geneva, where there was proposed for ratification by the
governments concerned an agreement that would provide the
refugees with appropriate papers, similar to the Nansen
passports of an earlier decade.
Under the new convention, the governments undertook not to
deport refugees to Germany unless the person concerned
willfully refused to prepare for his emigration to another
country. Although the Swiss did not want to be the first
to sign, they began to implement the convention's terms.
Finally Switzerland signed the convention, after a number
of other states had done so, in August 1937. Following
this act, the Alien Police [Ausländerpolizei] declared
(also August 1937) that deportations of refugees to
Germany should be undertaken only in exceptional cases.
(End note 92: Carl Ludwig: Die Flüchtlingspolitik der
Schweiz seit 1933 bis zur Gegenwart. Bericht an den
Bundesrat [The refugee policy of Switzerland since 1933 to
the present]; Zurich, no date [1957]), p.70)
[Growing relationships
between JDC and SIG 1933-1937]
JDC help was not forthcoming for VSIA until 1938, when it
(p.175)
became clear that the local community could not possibly
pay for the large number of Jews escaping from Germany and
Austria. From April 1933 to the end of 1937, over 700,000
Swiss francs were spent by Swiss Jewry, or about 8 Swiss
francs ($2) per person yearly, which was considerably more
than any other Jewish community gave at that time. Yet
while JDC did little more than watch the situation, the
relationship between Kahn and his successor, Morris C.
Troper, on one hand, and the heads of SIG, on the other,
grew progressively closer. This was especially so after
1936, when Saly Mayer became the president of SIG. The
importance of this connection was to make itself felt
later on. Until the great rush into Switzerland in 1938,
the number of refugees there was not high. In 1935 Kahn
estimated them to be 2,000, of whom only a few 100 needed
help.
(End note 93: R14, Kahn report of January 1936 for 1935.
About 300 persons were actually being cared for, on the
average, by VSIA. JDC expenditures in Switzerland came to
$ 7,010 in 1935, $ 4,200 in 1936, and $ 4,935 in 1937.
Some hospitals and cultural enterprises were supported).
