For survivors, healing is process that continues

By Wes Woods, On-Line Forty-Niner

Monday, November 23, 1998

Joachim Kellner, a professor from Hamburg, Germany, wanted to know why it took 50 years for Switzerland's government to talk about its now questionable role in World War II following a lecture on Switzerland's role in WWII Tuesday at the Faculty Development Center.

"It sometimes takes 50 years for people to dig up uncomfortable history," said lecturer Dr. Pierre Braunschweig, the Swiss director of the bureau for policy assessment, referring to Switzerland's slowness in paying out funds for primarily Jewish-owned bank accounts after the war. Braunschweig noted that he had published material on the subject in the 1970s and 1980s, but it was ignored by the press.

"Sometimes you need the right political weather to make these things attractive," he said. Braunschweig said he also felt Swiss banks were finally rectifying the situation by lessening barriers - such as previously demanding a death certificate for proof - for family members to retrieve their relatives' savings.

He also said the banks were actually giving the victims' families more money than deserved because of the negative publicity, due in part to the United States.

"A lot of Swiss feel [the negative attention by Americans] is unjust," Braunschweig said. He said Switzerland felt that it had suffered enough damage because of the war.

According to Braunschweig, Switzerland was the primary victim during the war because the major powers in the 1930s, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and France, "lacked the moral strength to quell the deteriorating situation in time."

Braunschweig said Switzerland should be understood "within the historical context of that time. Switzerland is a small country, as you know. Our own ability to influence world events, therefore, was zero."

The situation became even worse when Switzerland was surrounded on three sides by Axis (German influenced) powers, and despite the potentially explosive situation, remained fiercely anti-Nazi, Braunschweig said.

"The rise of National Socialism in Germany had been viewed by the vast majority of the Swiss population as a disaster, both for Germany and the world," he said.

Switzerland imported desperately needed raw materials and fuels from Germany during WWII due to an Allied (American influenced powers) blockade, which Germany countered with its own blockade, Braunschweig said.

The blockade put Switzerland in a very precarious position - the country was forced to continue exporting war materials and making credit available in foreign currency to clear agreements with Germany.

"One may criticize this today. Yet no one has come up with an alternative to do it better," Braunschweig said.

But while trading with Germany, Switzerland also exported goods to the Allies, much to the chagrin of German officials, Braunschweig said.

After the war, Braunschweig said, "1.7 billion Swiss francs were exported overseas and to countries at war with Germany, while goods worth 2 billion francs were imported - amounting to about one-third of Switzerland's trade with the Axis."