Swiss and the Nazis

by Stephen Halbrook

  Rita de Quervain had the typical experiences of helping farm families where the husband was often away on military duty. As a Girl Scout, she was sent to the army near the end of the war for hospital training. She commented: “The standard of living of the ordinary person was low. Some refugees had a higher standard of living, which led to resentment.” However, she recounted how public opinion favored letting in more refugees:

  “I personally knew Gertrud kurz, known as ‘the mother of refugees.’ She was outspoken when the border closed to refugees, and even approached Federal Councilor von Steiger, head of the Federal Department of Justice and police, in the Valais when he was on holiday there in August 1942. She kept going back to see him every single day, with phone calls coming in to her from border guards asking, ‘Can we let them in now?’ At the middle of the week she told them, ‘Yes, von Steiger agreed.’ The guards responded: ‘Thank God we can let them in!’ Von Steiger agreed at the end of the week!” The formal decisions to close the border and then to reopen it are described in the next chapter of this volume. This anecdote exemplifies the desire of humanitarians and soldiers alike to rescue refugees. Rita de Quervain continues:

  “I graduated from the Gymnasium in 1944. I went to Geneva to study and worked for several months as the cook in a camp for 30 refugee children, some Christian and some Jewish. The children were from Italy, poland, France and Germany.

  “Some children did not have enough meat. Orthodox rabbis would not allow them to eat non-kosher meat, but kosher slaughter methods were not allowed under Swiss animal protection laws. Rabbis came regularly to the camp to give instruction, teach religion and for festivities. We had very good relations with the rabbis and did not try to convert anyone.”

  The above accounts come from ordinary young people during the war. The following, however, is by a woman who was in the top echelon and an official responsible for finding housing for refugee women and children.

  Hedwig Stamm, whom this author interviewed when she was a very alert 92 years old, worked for Heimat und Lager from the late fall of 1942 until 1948. More precisely, the organization was called Eidgenössische Zentralleitung der Heimat und Lager/Direction fédérale des homes et camps—Federal Administration for Home and Camp. She acted as the right hand for Dr. Heinrich rothmund, Director of the police Division in the Federal Department of Justice and police, administering over 50 “homes” (tourist hotels) for refugee women and children, the majority of whom were Jewish. The men stayed in camps nearby. The first to open was the Hotel Bellevue in Schaffhausen. The network of refugee hotels eventually reached from northern Switzerland down to Interlaken and west to the Lake of Geneva, and to the south in Ticino. For military security reasons, hotels in the réduit were not used for refugees.14

  “I began on November 15, 1942, as Helfsleiterin (assistant manager) of the Home Management Department. By December I was in charge of all of the refugee homes. The owner had to agree to rent the hotel. I had to get permission from the local and cantonal authorities and, in areas where refugees were disallowed, I had to get special permission.” The disallowed locations were in militarily sensitive areas.

  “Some persons coming over the border had valid papers, others had false papers. Others no papers at all. The first stop after crossing the border was the Auffanglager, a primitive screening camp where identities were checked and verified. They were like military camps; refugees did not sleep directly on straw, but on bags filled with straw for mattresses. One took a shower and had a medical examination before proceeding to the camp. A band would be playing music. If there was a difficulty, a refugee might be detained in the Auffanglager. Soldiers stood guard because there might be spies. Otherwise the military had nothing to do with the camps.

  “Once cleared, women, children, doctors, other professionals, musicians and members of theatrical groups went to the Flüchtlingsheime, refugee homes. Able-bodied men were placed in Arbeitslager, work camps near the hotels where the women and children stayed. The men were required to work. They were not allowed simply to stay in the hotels with the women and children. Jewish organizations helped place some Jewish refugees in private homes.

  “Refugees were paid 2.80 Swiss francs per day. However, the pay of people placed in homes depended on what work they did. Many did kitchen duties and sanitation. Men in camps were paid for work such as drainage projects for farmers.

  “Some work was ‘make work’ which nonetheless enabled them to learn a trade and get paid. There were some large workshops where they could choose carpentry, shoemaking or tailoring. Girls learned housekeeping and were trained as in a kind of finishing school. Special places were set up for the elderly. Pregnant women went to designated shelters with medical services. There was even a home for intellectuals in Geneva, where many attended the university.

  “There were more refugees than residents in the resorts of Canton Valais. The tourist hotels had, of course, no tourists.

  “Emigrants were distinguished from refugees. By and large, the Jewish emigrants had papers and came to Switzerland before the war. Many German Jews came to Switzerland during 1934–35. Some of these went on to England. Most of the emigrants were educated Jews from Austria. Many were professionals.

  “Jewish emigrants played a key role in helping to administer and care for the Jewish refugees who followed them. You could rely on the emigrants. Homes for the elderly included Swiss nurses and an emigrant staff. Swiss dentists assisted by emigrants went to the camps and hotels. Without the emigrants, there would have been chaos in many places.

  “Behavior problems existed in refugee camps. Some refugees destroyed furniture. You could tell the class of people by the damage they did. Some were opposed to any authority and did not clean the WC, requiring refugee doctors and assistant managers to clean up. In one incident, some women kept stealing the cook’s pans. I ordered that only soup would be served until they were returned. The pans were returned. No angels, those refugees!” Hedwig Stamm’s remarks are plainspoken, but they reflect the true experiences of a person who helped to rescue the victims of Nazi Germany. She continued:

  “In fall 1942, the first Dutch refugees came to Chexbres. The Dutch Jews abided by kosher rules. That led to conflicts. After the war, Queen Juliana visited Luzern and asked for the bill for giving sanctuary to the Dutch Jews, but Switzerland forgave the debt.

  “I located over 50 hotels for refugees. I rejected some hotels as unsuitable due to problems with water, chimneys, and other defects. There were extra expenses for transportation, food, and other items when the hotels were located in the mountains.

  “The hotel in Luzern had a large, modern facility which laundered clothes for refugee camps all over Switzerland. Occupants kept busy with mending, ironing and running the steamrollers. The refugees had enough clothes to send some off to this laundry.”

  As noted, Swiss refugee policy was administered by Heinrich rothmund of the Federal Department of Justice and police. Hedwig Stamm recalls: “Dr. Rothmund was tall and imposing. Annual conventions of managers of homes and camps were held at the Congress House in Zurich to hear complaints and resolve problems. About 700 people attended. I sat next to Dr. Rothmund, who said, ‘I’m the most criticized man in Switzerland.’”

  Head of the Department was Federal Councilor Eduard von Steiger, who was also severely criticized. Hedwig Stamm recalled that von Steiger attended one of the above meetings and said, “‘Every refugee has a right to write me personally, and every one will be answered.’ Yet a Swiss private in the army could not write and get an answer. Von Steiger heard complaints about that.” It seems that those in charge of refugee policy could satisfy no one. While Swiss refugee policy is analyzed in detail in the next chapter, Stamm’s observations give a close-up view of the realities of refugee life. She continued:

  “Movement was restricted by the police. The authorities set hours and boundaries [for travel]. They could leave during the day and did not have to sign out.

  “I knew emigrants per
sonally, but not refugees. Associating with refugees would have led to jealousy.” Although emigrants were originally foreigners, they had become permanent residents and were active in assisting Swiss officials and professionals in caring for refugees. Refugees were persons who were taken in for humanitarian reasons but were not permanent residents.

  “Rations were the same for refugees as for Swiss people in retirement homes. Salad dressing was made from butter-making residue. A soup was made that tasted so good it was named after Hürlimann beer! potatoes were mixed with the bread, which could not be consumed until it was two days old. It got gooky. Refugees from the Eastern countries were accustomed to large amounts of cheap, non-nutritious food, and had enlarged stomachs. Under rationing, there was a sufficient amount of nutritious food.” potato bread was the only bread available in Switzerland to everyone, citizens and refugees alike. Potatoes were needed to make large quantities of this bread, and the potatoes were cultivated in every arable piece of land in the country. The two-day rule was devised to make the bread harder, more filling, and less desirable so it would not be eaten quickly.

  It was Hedwig Stamm’s job to care for refugees, but police were concerned with security and were not as sympathetic to their concerns. Stamm relates: “Signs were posted throughout Switzerland: ‘Whoever cannot hold his tongue, harms his homeland!’ police wanted to restrict refugees for security reasons. The mayor of Luzern was in favor of taking in more refugees, but police chief Walter Strebi opposed it. Strebi imposed restrictions on refugees. I proposed a liberal plan, which he rejected. After all these years I still have fire in my heart. He made me mad!

  “I also quarreled with Colonel Hauptmann in Zermatt, who said that ‘for military reasons I cannot give permission for that hotel.’ I got him on the phone, expressed my anger and got the permit. I would not tolerate interference with helping refugees, despite the military threat from Germany.”

  92-year old Hedwig Stamm concluded our interview: “I never heard of any anti-Semitism in Switzerland. Swiss were preoccupied with daily food. Women had to keep things running when husbands were mobilized. Regarding charges in the late 1990s about the work camps, I feel exasperation that we only hear from men complaining about the camps. We hear nothing about the women and children—they lived in hotels.”

  The above aside about economic difficulties could be illustrated in countless ways. The following segment concerns a factory that processed rubber products.

  Fifty-one-year-old Andreas Capol, a veteran of the World War I mobilization, was called up again on August 28, 1939, into a border protection company. Since he was president of the rubber factory Gummi-Werke richterswil AG, he was granted a short leave in September. Returning, he found great unrest and dissatisfaction at the factory.15

  It seems that Dr. H.J. Von Fischer, a 40-year-old chemist from Austria, was plant manager. “While Fischer had opposed Hitler after the Anschluss, he later married a Sudeten German girl named ritter who turned him to Nazism. The Fischers became aggressively vocal, creating tension in the factory and village, where people were anti-Nazi. Mrs. Fischer criticized Swiss soldiers and members of the Home Defense, and Mr. Fischer complained when soldiers practiced near the plant or trampled on flowers. It was reported that on Sundays the Fischers received Nazi visitors. The authorities began to monitor the Fischers’ telephone conversations.”

  It was learned that Mr. Fischer was a leader of the Nazi Partei-Genossen. He became increasingly unpopular at the factory, and his performance went downhill. At last he suffered a nervous breakdown, blaming Mr. Capol, who remembered: “He was arrogant about it, saying: ‘The Führer takes notice of everything, he will forget nothing and will call you to account in due course!’ Apparently my fault was that I had reprimanded him for greeting the office staff in the morning with the ‘Hitler-Gruss’ [Hitler greeting].” When Fischer continued his Nazi activities, the company fired him and then, in 1941, the Swiss government banished the couple from the country. For this too he blamed Capol. As Fischer took leave of his few friends, he said, “Till we meet again.”

  Fischer also filed a report, later shown to be false, alleging that the company violated gasoline-rationing restrictions. This could have caused the company’s export business to collapse, since gasoline was essential as a solvent for the fabrication of certain rubber products. Capol had to intervene with the authorities in Bern to restore the allotment.

  Raw materials were increasingly hard to come by. The authorities controlled the small stocks of crude rubber. Capol heard from the Swiss Military Department about the waste of large amounts of scrap rubber in the manufacture of army gas masks. The company was able to obtain worn tires and other discarded materials and transform it into tons of high-quality rubber.

  As coal supplies dwindled as well, the company turned to tree trunks and low-calorie domestic brown coal for fuel. Capol remembers: “With an electric wood saw and a cutting machine, we sawed the tree trunks into small blocks, storing them by the boiler house. We also purchased pine cones and even sent unoccupied workers into the forest to collect them. Storage of the pine cones close to the boiler house caused problems. Thousands of insects swarmed out and harassed us.”

  Switzerland’s struggle for economic survival took some strange turns. Despite the fact that Switzerland is totally landlocked, ocean-going vessels flying the Swiss flag played an important role in furnishing the country with necessities and in aiding humanitarian efforts for the Allies.

  Albert Vogel remembers: “Not many Swiss worked with our seagoing vessels, and only a few are still alive. I happen to be one of them. Switzer land had 14 ships, of which 3 were used exclusively by the International Committee of the red Cross (ICrC) carrying pOW food parcels from philadelphia to the Mediterranean ports of Genoa, Toulon, Marseille, and Barcelona. From autumn 1944 onward, trucks and trailers were also shipped by sea, so that the parcels could be transported to the pOW camps. Since railroads by then had been largely destroyed, truck drivers were sent out by bus from Switzerland.16

  “The remaining eleven vessels under the Swiss flag could not sail without a Navigation Certificate, or ‘Navicert.’ Navicerts were issued by the Allied Naval Command when the loading papers had been forwarded and they had assured themselves with inspections that the papers matched the cargo actually on board. All vessels had to pass Gibraltar. There the daily positions, transmitted by wireless, could be compared with the logbook and charts whenever the slightest doubt existed as to any delay during the sea voyage which could have been used to supply a German patrol boat or a U-boat. Upon arrival in Switzerland the cargo was cleared by customs. It must have been very easy for Allen Dulles (head of U.S. Intelligence in Bern) to compare the customs papers with the original manifests. The Swiss seagoing vessels did not supply the Axis powers.

  “I made about six voyages from the United States to Spain to ship parcels to U.S. and Canadian pOWs. The packets contained food, chewing gum, cigarettes and other items. These Swiss flagships also carried raw materials from Africa and elsewhere to Switzerland. I was on a Swiss flagship which a submarine torpedoed and sank.” Albert Vogel obviously survived, but sea lanes were always dangerous in wartime and mistakes almost inevitable.

  With imported goods cut off by both the Allies and the Germans, Switzerland promoted makeshift production at home. Peter Voser, who was born in Baden in 1923, recalls:

  “Owning a garden was extremely important during the Depression and then later during the wartime cultivation effort known as the Wahlen plan. Many workers got into fights to get a garden plot. People were using wood and coal to heat. Poor people were collecting wood in the forest. Wood collection cards cost five Swiss francs and permitted the owner to collect wood in the entire forest. With the cultivation battle starting in 1939, every family had to work a plot. Since we had left our large house with garden for a small roof apartment, an acquaintance gave us a small field in Birmensdorf where we had to grow potatoes. It was hard manual labor, especially since he seemed to
have given us the piece of land with the most clay. Accordingly, we were poorly motivated and the yield was poor too. We abandoned our contribution to the Wahlen plan soon.17

  “Bread was the most important basic foodstuff, while today it is more of a side food. In the military, men received one pound of bread a day. During the war we could not buy fresh bread. There was only dark bread, and the flour was supplemented with potato starch. We had to make certain that the bread was not kept in too warm a room because it would turn sour and become inedible very fast. The flip side was that the Swiss population was never as healthy as during the war. There were only slim people.

  “Today everybody eats meat, but meat was scarce then. During the war I took a bicycle trip to Appenzell. We decided to rest in Trogen. We went to a restaurant and ordered spaghetti because it was cheap. When we were served the large plates and were digging into the spaghetti, we discovered a small piece of meat which the generous host had smuggled in. That was strictly forbidden on meatless days (there were three per week, and we were traveling on one of them). You can imagine with how much pleasure we ate our meal.

  “Blue-collar workers lived outside Baden in Wettingen and rode bicycles to work. At the beginning and end of work, there were masses of bikes like you see today in China! The people rode their bikes through the city and below the narrow city tower. At the railroad crossing on Brugger strasse there was a traffic jam.”

  Whether the day was meatless or not, a ration card was required. A meal at a restaurant required a Mahlzeitencoupon, a coupon witheither “1 Mc” (a full meal) or “1/2 Mc” (half a meal, such as a sandwich). To purchase food, one needed a Berechtigungs-Ausweis just to get food coupons and a Ganze Lebensmittel Karte, the monthly food card. Purchase of clothing required the Textil-Karte, and for shoes the Schuh-Karte. The Seifenkarte, the ration card for men’s soap, was printed with the exhortations “save soap—do not use hard water” and “before washing, put soda in the water with the soap.” Numerous other ration cards were in use. Misuse or sale of a coupon was penalized.18