Language:
English
Year of publication:
2004
Titel der Quelle:
Jewish Studies at the Central European University
Angaben zur Quelle:
4 (2004-2005) 139-158
Keywords:
Jews History 1939-1945
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
;
Jews Economic conditions
Abstract:
Only in the 1990s did Switzerland reexamine the myth of its neutrality during the Holocaust. The previous policy was one of collective forgetting in the context of the Cold War. Revises Swiss Holocaust history in regard to military, economic, and refugee issues. Swiss business circles urged that the country's sustain economic relations with Nazi Germany, including increased exports, without consideration of Nazi antisemitism. The primacy of economic considerations led to the integration of the Swiss production base into the German war economy, with Switzerland becoming an indispensable economic partner. Other forms of economic cooperation, e.g. in terms of Jewish assets plundered, also cast doubts on the actuality of Swiss neutrality, as do other problematic acts. Swiss wartime military policy is a heroic myth that masked a lack of neutrality. Despite the rescue of thousands of Jews by many individuals, due to its adoption of anti-Jewish measures in 1942 the country failed to rescue many more Jewish refugees. Swiss authorities also hampered the actions of the International Committee of the Red Cross, since antisemitic, anti-foreigner, and anti-minority views effected federal law and practice.
Note:
Appeared in Italian as "La Svizzera neutrale, il nazismo e l'eredità della storia" in "Storia della Shoah; la crisi dell'Europa, lo sterminio degli ebrei e la memoria del XX secolo. Vol. IV" (2006) 497-520.
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