61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

occupied areas as well as taking initiatives in Switzerland itself. After 1940,
Switzerland was represented in the American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee (JDC), which provided a large part of the necessary funds, by SFJC
President Saly Mayer. After resigning as President of the SFJC, Mayer worked,
after spring 1943, in an official capacity as European co-ordinator of the JDC
on behalf of those in need in Nazi-occupied territory.
The SFJC and the Swiss Jews used various methods to urge the authorities to
admit refugees, allow them to stay and provide accommodation, even if the
refugees were strictly forbidden to seek gainful employment. In view of the
possibility of aggression on the part of the Nazi state, the SFJC increasingly
refrained from any public comments from 1938 on, and made its requests to the
authorities orally. When in 1941 the persecution of Jews turned into their extermination,
the SFJC’s discretion, which until then had served the refugees well,
became totally ineffective. From spring 1942 on, the SFJC’s main activities no
longer centred on finding temporary accommodation for refugees and helping
them to continue to a third country, but increasingly on rescuing people whose
lives were threatened. After August 1942, relations between the SFJC and the
authorities deteriorated. This provided an incentive for individual Jewish representatives
to pursue or at least to support clandestine relief activities. In March
1943, the VSJF once again protested against the EJPD’s refusal to recognise
racial persecution as well as political persecution as a reason for granting
asylum, but came to realise that the various relief organisations operating under
the Swiss Central Office for Refugee Relief umbrella organisation, were not
willing to support its requests. From 1944, the SFJC advocated general
permanent asylum for Nazi victims in Switzerland, and was finally successful
in 1947, but even then only in part.
Under these circumstances, it is inappropriate to create the impression that the
SFJC was partly responsible for the policy on refugees at the time on the basis
of its co-operation with the authorities up until 1942. If one takes into account
the fact that the legal and political position of Jews in Switzerland was by no
means inviolable, the SFJC and the VSJF had even less room to manoeuvre than
the relief organisations, which generally made an effort to co-operate. It remains
to be said that, out of all the social forces, the SFJC was the most vociferous in
demanding in 1942/43, although unsuccessfully, that the principles of Swiss
policy on refugees be radically revised.
The population
The attitude and role of the population as a whole is almost impossible to assess
today. It must be said, though, that the many years of financial support for the
relief organisations, the escape aid given at the border and people’s willingness
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