Anti-Semitism shaped Swiss refugee policy

Jean François Bergier headed up the Independent Commission of Experts swissinfo.ch

Anti-Semitism influenced Switzerland's refugee policy during the Second World War, according to a new report probing Switzerland's wartime past.

The report, one of ten released in Bern on Thursday by the Independent Commission of Experts (ICE), found that Switzerland’s policy of turning away Jews fleeing Nazi persecution was largely based on hostility.

“Anti-Semitism appears as an important reason for either not perceiving the persecution of Jews, or not drawing the necessary consequences in favour of the victims from this knowledge,” the new report says.

The authors add that the closure of Switzerland’s borders in the summer of 1942 was partly justified by concerns about food supply, but point out that neither the food situation, nor military or political pressure from abroad played a decisive role.

Switzerland’s wartime actions in denying entry to refugees have been fiercely controversial. Historians have said thousands of people who sought sanctuary from the Nazis were turned away by Switzerland. An unknown number eventually perished in concentration camps.

The ICE, led by the historian Jean-François Bergier, stressed that the federal authorities knew that rejected refugees were threatened with deportation to Nazi death camps.

The findings largely back up a preliminary report from 1999, which was fiercely criticised by wartime witnesses, conservative citizens’ groups, as well as the government.

Infamous “J” stamp

The commission says that, from 1938 onwards, the Swiss authorities used racist criteria established by Nazi German law to decide whom to allow into the country. Switzerland was also involved in the marking of passports of German Jews with the infamous “J” stamp.

The authors of the revised refugee report criticised the harsh living conditions for refugees in Swiss internment camps and the restrictions imposed. They noted that the government had refused to accept payments from organisations in the United States to support Jewish refugees from 1942 to the end of 1943.

About 300,000 people, including interned military personnel, refugees admitted on a temporary basis, children on vacation, civilian refugees, immigrants and political refugees, were given temporary or permanent shelter in Switzerland during the Second World War, the report says.

The authors acknowledged that, despite the official policy towards Jews and refugees many Swiss citizens and officials assisted and defended them, often at the risk of being ostracised.

Ransom payments

The ICE highlighted the role of Swiss banks and financial institutions as intermediaries for the payment of ransoms demanded by the Nazis from Jews seeking exit permits from occupied countries, particularly the Netherlands.

Between 1940 and 1945, Reich officials in the Netherlands “demanded foreign currency and other valuables from Jews seeking exit permits,” the report said. “For both the persecuted and the perpetrators, it made sense to use the services offered by intermediaries in neutral Switzerland.”

It added that Swiss intermediaries had different motives, ranging from personal gain to a commitment to humanitarian ideals.

Policy towards gypsies

A separate study investigates Switzerland’s official policy towards gypsies in the Nazi period. It pointed out that Switzerland was one of the first states at the beginning of the 20th century to limit gypsies’ freedom of movement.

The restrictions were tightened from the 1930s, the report said, denying members of persecuted ethnic groups the option of escaping the Nazi regime.

The report lists cases where the Swiss authorities refused to recognise the Swiss citizenship of gypsies or failed to help in order to rescue those in danger.

The Swiss government has already apologised twice for its restrictive refugee policy during the Second World War. In 1995 the government said Switzerland had failed to maintain its humanitarian tradition, and it repeated the apology again in 1999.

Dormant accounts

A report on dormant accounts held in Swiss banks and the restitution of the funds during the post-war period shows that both the official government policy and the banks were responsible for the failure to return assets to Holocaust victims and their heirs.

Many banks used stonewalling tactics or withheld information, the report said. Three surveys of dormant accounts carried out between 1947 and 1962 discovered 739 accounts, with a value of SFr6.2 million, according to the ICE.

It was only after pressure from abroad that the banks agreed in the 1990s to an independent audit, led by the former chairman of the United States Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker.

Concluding its search for Holocaust victims’ assets in Swiss banks, the Volcker commission in 1999 announced it had found more than 50,000 possible accounts never disclosed before. The Swiss banks in the previous year agreed to a $1.25 billion settlement with Jewish organisations.

Covert German operations

Switzerland was used as a hub for covert German activities, including 100 camouflage companies set up to maintain Germany’s economic interests.

The Commission of Experts pointed out that the transfer to Switzerland of bank notes, jewellery and securities, belonging to the Nazi elite began only after 1939. At the end of the war these German assets at the time totalled more than SFr2 billion.

Contrary to official denials, there is also evidence that Nazi collaborators escaped to Switzerland after the war, the ICE says. However, none of the most wanted war criminals stayed in Switzerland for long.

“After the war [some of them] obtained the benefit of travel documents [from the] International Committee of the Red Cross… in Italy,” the authors said, adding that the ICRC issued them unwittingly, due to a lack of suitable controls.

Unethical business dealings

The investigations of securities’ trading between Switzerland and Nazi Germany revealed that some Swiss banks profited from foreign exchange controls, and the Nazis confiscation of victims’ assets.

The ICE says some Swiss banks accepted stolen securities from Nazi Germany, and obstructed the return of securities seized from Jews and inhabitants in occupied countries.

The commission singles out a small Zurich-based bank, Bodenkreditanstalt, which resorted to highly questionable, and even illegal business methods, to secure frozen assets in Germany.

Breach of neutrality

Two new reports into the Swiss justice system during the Nazi era show that Swiss law, neither at a constitutional level nor in court rulings, was influenced by the Nazi ideology.

However, the experts pointed out serious legal shortcomings with regard to Switzerland’s refugee policy and its diplomacy.

The reports noted that Switzerland violated its status as a neutral country by granting credits to Nazi Germany, trading in arms and looted gold, as well as by not inspecting cargo trains transiting through Switzerland.

Finally, a new report also probes Swiss business relations with Italy’s fascist regime under Benito Mussolini. The ICE says the fascist regime was considered a trustworthy business partner and that the Swiss authorities identified Italy as an important transit country for Switzerland’s national supplies.

Five-year research

The ten new studies are part of a final report by the nine-member ICE, set up by Swiss government to investigate Switzerland’s role as a neutral country during the Second World War.

The investigations, based on official documents as well as corporate archive material, were launched five years ago at the height of the debate over Holocaust-era assets in Swiss banks.

A first instalment, comprising eight reports, came out last August. It focused on Switzerland’s industrial and financial links with Nazi Germany as a means to preserve the country’s independence and economic stability.

Seven further studies are due within the next few months, including a revised edition of a controversial preliminary study, published in May 1998, on Switzerland’s gold dealings with the Nazi regime.

It showed that the Swiss central bank handled gold worth up to SFr1.7 billion from Germany, including some 120 kilogrammes of gold from Holocaust victims.

A compilation of all 25 reports, costing SFr22 million ($13 million) is to be submitted to the government, before it is published in the first half of next year.

by Urs Geiser