61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

created a legal basis for the practice, introduced in 1940, of interning emigrants
in civilian work camps and demanding a financial contribution from the
wealthier ones in favour of refugee relief organisations. 16 In principle, both the
setting up of the work camps and the levying of financial contributions from
emigrants were welcomed by the aid organisations, although they did not
always approve of the way in which this policy was implemented. These contributions
represented financial relief for the organisations which had been
supporting the refugees since 1933 and which had reached the limits of their
financial capacity by the end of 1938. The aim of the work camps was to occupy
the immigrants, who were forbidden to take up gainful employment, for the
benefit of the country; at the same time, internment was a means of control and
discipline. At the outbreak of the war there were between 7,000 and 8,000
immigrants in Switzerland, including around 5,000 Jews; during the war the
country hosted a total of 9,909 immigrants, i.e., between September 1939 and
May 1945 an estimated 2,000 refugees were allowed to enter the country and
issued a tolerance permit. 17 In addition, between the outbreak of the war and
the end of 1941, over 200 refugees who had entered Switzerland illegally and
whom the authorities considered it untimely to deport, were interned on the
basis of the law on foreigners. 18 Thus in contrast to 1938 and the period after
1942, the first two years of the war saw relatively few civilian refugees entering
Switzerland. At the same time there is documentary evidence that during the
same period over 1,200 people were refused entry, of whom 900 tried to get into
Switzerland in June 1940, mainly along the border with France. 19
Meanwhile in June 1940, shortly before the fall of France, 42,600 soldiers –
mainly French and Polish – were allowed in and during the few days before the
cease-fire Switzerland hosted around 7,500 French civilians from along its
borders, including a large number of children. Further waves of foreign military
personnel were allowed into Switzerland in autumn 1943, when over 21,300
Italians crossed the border, and during the last few months of the war. 20 During
the whole period of the war a total of 104,000 military refugees were accepted
into Switzerland; the French soldiers returned to France as early as January 1941
while the Poles and military refugees from many other countries mostly stayed
on in Switzerland until the war was over. Military personnel were treated
according to the Hague Agreement of 1907 on the Rights and Duties of Neutral
Powers in Wartime, i.e., most of them were interned in camps and became the
responsibility of the Commission for Internment and Hospitalisation, which
had been set up in June 1940 as part of the Federal Military Department. These
military refugees included hospitalised soldiers, deserters, conscientious
objectors and escaped prisoners of war. All deserters were allowed in and
interned. The large number of young men who fled Italy in the second part of
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