61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

to supervise the internees, to meet their basic needs and to limit contact with
the local population, as well as to provide cheap accommodation. The term
«concentration» camp was soon replaced by «Polish», «detention» or «mass»
camp, implying a desire to get away from the original, controversial term.
Once the camp was finished, not only the inhabitants of Büren an der Aare
but the Swiss government too were visibly proud of the efficiency with which
it had been set up and the way in which the whole problem had been solved.
Many of the internees had no work and were forced to sit around idly. They
were also forbidden to have any contact with the local population as well as
to marry Swiss women. After the enthusiastic welcome they had received
from the Swiss population, this «prison» was a bitter pill for the Poles. The
rumour quickly spread that the Swiss authorities were acting under pressure
from the German authorities, which indicates the resentment felt by the
Poles at being interned in a «concentration camp». The camp authorities
dealt with the growing dissatisfaction by trying to increase discipline. At the
end of December 1940, there were angry riots and the guards fired on the
Polish soldiers, wounding some of them.
At the end of January 1941 army headquarters issued a ruling allowing the
internees to work. This eased the situation insofar as they were not forced to
sit around idly any longer. Under the intensive food production plan passed
in November 1940, most of the Poles were put to work in the fields. In spring
1941, the Swiss authorities realised that the camp had been a mistake. With
a maximum capacity of 3,500 internees it was overcrowded and, after March
1941, no more Poles were interned there. Many residents were then sent from
Büren an der Aare to other cantons where they were employed in manufacturing,
road construction, forestry, etc. In addition, some internees – in
March 1945 around 500 – were allowed to enrol at universities. In March
1942, the facility ceased to be a military detention camp, although it was
subsequently used to house Jewish refugees and later escaped Soviet convicts.
Nazi extermination policy and closed borders in August 1942
While anti-Jewish measures were intensified as early as 1938 in Germany and
after 1940 in the territories it occupied, once the German army invaded the
Soviet Union in summer 1941 the Nazi persecution of Jews developed into
systematic extermination. In the occupied parts of the Soviet Union German
troops, aided by Soviet volunteers, carried out mass murders of Jews and
communists. October 1941 saw the start of the systematic deportation of Jews
as well as Roma and Sinti from the territory of the Reich; at the same time Jews
were forbidden to emigrate. In November 1941, any German Jews that were
outside the country were deprived of their German citizenship and their assets
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