61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

the war in order to avoid military service were interned as military personnel.
Escaped prisoners of war presented a special problem: according to the terms of
the Hague Agreement a neutral country could take them in but was not obliged
to do so. Switzerland left itself this room for discretion. Up until 1942, French
prisoners of war who escaped from Germany to Switzerland were able to get
back into the unoccupied part of France. Otherwise, the Federal Department of
Justice and Police urged the authorities to exercise extreme reticence and «not
to allow in undesirable elements (Jews, political extremists and those suspected
of being spies)». 21 In practice it was extremely difficult to distinguish between
military and civilian refugees, mainly in the case of groups of forced labourers
from southern Germany which included both soldiers and civilians. Up until
1944, it was principally Polish and Soviet forced labourers that were regularly
refused entry into Switzerland, a fact which often had dire consequences for
them. 22
Interned Polish military personnel and the «concentration camp»
at Büren an der Aare23 In June 1940, the 45th French Army Corps fled to Switzerland. After the
Federal Council gave its approval, 42,600 soldiers entered the country across
its western border. Apart from 29,000 French soldiers, the Corps included a
division of 12,000 Poles, a Moroccan cavalry regiment (called Spahis) of 800
men, and several hundred Belgians and Englishmen. The Poles were met
with great sympathy by the Swiss population – not only on account of the
unexpectedly «proud» and «disciplined» impression they gave but also
because, after the military defeat of their own country, they had volunteered
to join the French army to defend their fatherland.
At first the Poles were billeted in various parts of the country, some with
private families. In July 1940, however, the Head of General Staff decided to
set up a detention camp at Büren an der Aare for 6,000 Polish refugees. This
decision was taken in view of the fact that, in contrast to the French soldiers,
the Poles could not be sent back to France and that, after the destruction of
the Polish state by Germany and the Soviet Union, Switzerland could not
count on ever receiving reparations for the cost of interning the Polish
soldiers. The plan was therefore to provide suitable accommodation for
winter conditions and to reduce the cost by concentrating the soldiers in one
camp.
During the planning stages, the army referred to the camp as a «concentration
camp». At this time, when extermination camps had not yet come
into existence, the authorities considered this facility as a prison or work
camp. In Switzerland, there was no precedent for such a camp, whose aim was
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