61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

to commit themselves to activities such as taking in children or the accommodation
campaign (Freiplatzaktion) initiated by pastor Paul Vogt indicate that
part of the population was very willing to help the refugees. Finally, it is interesting
to note how the population was perceived by the authorities. The EJPD,
for example, regularly claimed that taking in Jewish refugees would intensify
anti-Semitism. It is known that Rothmund veiled the anti-Semitism that was
rife among the authorities with the argument that keeping out Jewish
emigrants and refugees served to protect Switzerland as well as Swiss Jews from
an anti-Semitism that was «unworthy of our nation». Robert Briner declared
on the other hand at the end of August 1942: «There is no danger of anti-
Semitism. Our people are immune to it.» 126 Both of these contradictory statements
by different representatives of the authorities refer to anti-Semitism in
Germany: «immunity» presupposes «infection» from the outside; the anti-
Semitism that was «unworthy of our nation» was a foreign one. In contrast to
what is suggested here, anti-Semitic prejudice and Christian enmity towards
Jews were also common among the Swiss population. It is doubtful, however,
whether the generous admission of Jewish refugees whose lives were threatened
would have resulted in a generalised anti-Semitic movement supported by the
population, let alone a virulent «redemptive anti-Semitism» of a Nazi type.
What is clear is that in summer 1942 the authorities’ confidence in their policy
was shaken by the population or at least by that part of the population which
articulated their political opinions. Federal Councillor von Steiger did not fail
to be impressed by the demonstrations against the closing of the borders; at the
Conference of the Cantonal Police Directors he used the demonstrations to back
his argument against the negative attitude of certain cantons:
«The cantons that say today that they can not help us should think hard
about whether they can join us or not. They cannot remain aloof if the
whole of Switzerland says it is prepared to take in [refugees].» 127
The authorities’ reply to those who referred to the tradition of granting asylum
was that a realistic stand justified refusing asylum. The EPD explained that the
task of the Federal authorities:
«is made all the more difficult by the fact that public opinion in
Switzerland, regardless of political or social differences, often advocates, in
passionate terms, a more far-reaching and more generous policy for
granting asylum.» 128
Naturally there were shifts in public opinion; over the final 18 months of the
147