Bern, Switzerland – Swiss Jewish groups are faulting the country’s president for failing to address the neutral country’s failings during World War II in a statement marking the annual Holocaust remembrance day.
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In a statement Sunday, President Ueli Maurer said Switzerland remained “a country of freedom and law” during the war and became a safe haven for many persecuted people.
But Switzerland’s main Jewish organizations complained Monday that he neglected also to mention “the refugees who were turned back to a certain death.”
A government-commissioned report concluded in 2001 that Switzerland turned back many refugees although the government knew by 1942 of the Nazis’ “final solution.”
The government says that Maurer is aware of the need for a nuanced view of Switzerland’s wartime role and hadn’t intended to question it.
Not only did Switzerland turn back many Jewish refugees, but they essentially financed many of the Third Reich’s operations. Many of the treasures plundered from Jews wound up in Switzerland. In the late 1990’s, the World Jewish Congress went after the Swiss Goverment, regarding bank accounts and life insurance policies of Holocaust victims, which the Swiss knew about, but pretended that they didn’t exist. Negotiations went back and forth, and resulted initially in the Swiss digging its feet in and stating that “they were being harassed by powerful New York Jews”. Finally, the Swiss settled in a multi-billion dollar settlement. The entire episode showed what “friends”, the Swiss were to Jews.
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