61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

In view of the collaboration between the authorities and the relief organisations,
can the latter be considered partly responsible for the restrictive policy on
refugees? They certainly acted as a corrective element in the direction of a more
open policy on refugees. It must be said that statements made by relief organisation
circles can frequently be found which, from today’s standpoint, seem
questionable in view of their closeness to the attitude of the authorities. In a
historical interpretation, however, two aspects must definitely be taken into
account. Firstly, there was little room for overtly dissident relief to refugees in
the face of the socio-political rallying process taking place in the second half of
the 1930s. Only the communists persisted in their opposition, in an undemocratic
manner and increasingly taking their cue from Moscow. Their organisation
Red Aid, banned in 1940 (together with the Party) refused to register illegal
refugees with the authorities, which was one of the reasons why the Red Aid
organisation was not included in the Swiss Central Office for Refugee Relief set
up in 1936. Secondly, close collaboration often existed between the relief organisations
and the political elite, who considered private charity activities to be
part of their duties. This is true not only of the ICRC, in which the Federal
Council personally had its representative, as described above, but also of the
Swiss Refugee Relief and the relief organisations, which were funded mainly by
contributions from bourgeois circles. A well-known example is the dual role
played by Robert Briner, who was Chief of the Zurich Police Department and
at the same time Director of the Swiss Central Office for Refugee Relief. At the
Conference of the Cantonal Police Directors held on 17 August 1938, he asked:
«Can’t we keep our borders more tightly shut? We’re having more of a job
getting rid of the refugees than keeping them out.» 118 At the subsequent Police
Conference of Cantonal Police Directors on 28 August 1942, he demanded that
the borders be hermetically closed, declaring at the same time that his canton
was prepared to set up and finance work camps for the refugees already here and
to look for families willing to take in Jewish refugees. Federal Councillor von
Steiger asked Briner to explain the outcome of the conference to the relief organisations.
119 A month later Briner announced to the police directors that:
«In order to solve the question of the refugees both sides must try to fully
understand the other’s point of view, because these extremely difficult tasks
can only be fulfilled through joint effort. In order to facilitate such collaboration,
I have accepted to take over as director of the Central Office.» 120
The relief organisations were thus also political partners of the authorities,
useful in fulfilling many of the tasks arising from the policy on refugees and, as
a rule, co-operative. On the one hand, this fusion made them a stronger body
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