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Swiss rehabilitate WWII Jewish refugee helpers

Switzerland said Wednesday it had finally finished the process of rehabilitating more than a hundred people punished during WWII for having helped Jews escape Nazi persecution.

But only one of the 137 people vindicated by the report actually lived to see their name cleared.

“All these people are today dead,” Alexandre Schneebeli, the secretary of the Swiss parliament’s rehabilitation commission, told AFP.

And of them only Aimee Stitelman lived to see her name officially cleared, several years ago.

In 1945, a Swiss military court ordered her detained for 15 days for having helped 15 Jewish children who were fleeing the Nazis, some of them orphans, enter Switzerland.

The rehabilitation commission struck down the conviction in March 2004, when she was 79 years old. She died a year later.

The committee was set up in 2004 to acknowledge the injustice done to people in Switzerland who took it upon themselves to help Jews escape Nazi persecution.

The Swiss courts punished those they caught on the grounds that their actions had violated Swiss neutrality.

According to historians, several hundred people lost their job, were fined and in some cases even jailed for having sheltered Jews hiding from the Nazis.

Thus a 25-year-old commercial traveller was jailed for two and a half months by one court for having helped a Viennese Jew get into the country. The Jew he helped was also jailed for two months — and then sent back over the border.

While Switzerland helped nearly 300,000 refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe during the war years, it also turned back 20,000 of them, most of them Jews.

A committee of historians concluded in 2001 that the policy pursued by the Swiss between 1933, when Hitler came to power in Germany and 1945, when he was finally defeated by the Allied forces, had been “excessively restrictive.”

The Swiss parliament adopted the rehabilitation law as a result. But the official recognition that their actions were right and proper does not include any compensation.

Of the 137 people rehabilitated, 59 were Swiss, 34 French, 24 Italian, six German, three Polish, with one Czech, one Hungarian, a Spaniard — and several others who at the time in question were stateless.

According to the work of the researchers some of them acted for purely humanitarian reasons and others out of a sense of patriotism, while some were also motivated by the money that refugees offered them.

The commission completed its work after eight years, having started in 2004, Wednesday’s statement from parliament said.

Its research had brought an important chapter of the country’s history to public attention, publicising the actions of people who until now were unknown, Wednesday’s statement said.

“This recognition was essential in the eyes of the people concerned and those close to them,” the statement added.

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WORLD WAR II

How France will mark VE day on May 8th

Saturday's commemoration of the date that marks the end of World War II in Europe will be happening under strict Covid-19 health rules, but there will be events in France.

How France will mark VE day on May 8th
French President Emmanuel Macron and some military will be attending this year's commemoration in Paris, as they did here, in 2019. Photo: Martin BUREAU / various sources / AFP

Why do we mark May 8th?

First a brief history. May 8th marks the formal acceptance by the Allies of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender of its armed forces in 1945.

Popularly known as VE Day (Victory in Europe Day), it marks the date when World War II ended in Europe.

Some fighting continued around the world, however. The United States dropped its atomic bombs on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki months later, in August, and all hostilities officially ceased on September 2nd 1945.

But in Europe, May 8th brought the end of the Nazi threat and a promise of brighter times ahead.

How is May 8th commemorated in France?

France is one of the few European countries that have made May 8th a public holiday and most people get the day off work when it falls on a weekday (this year it will be on a Saturday, so unfortunately no extra day off).

READ ALSO The French holiday calendar for 2021

In normal times, without Covid-19, May 8th is majestically marked with a large ceremony in Paris and smaller celebrations in towns and cities across the country.

Last year’s event, although it marked the 75-year-anniversary, was a small-scale one compared to other years, as France was still under its first nationwide, strict lockdown. 

President Emmanuel Macron did go ahead with the wreath-laying ceremony at the Champs-Elysées, keeping with the tradition for French heads of state. 

What’s on this year?

The 2021 commemorations will also be less grand than other years as several Covid-19 restrictions remain in place in France.

IN DETAIL: France’s new calendar for reopening after Covid restrictions

As last year, Macron will lay a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe, which stands at the top of the Champs Elysées, in the presence of “a restricted number of public officials and military,” the French Defence Ministry said a press statement.

The ceremony will be closed to the public, though it will be possible to watch it live on television.

Regional authorities – the préfets – have permission to organise ceremonies in their areas, though “in a restricted format and while strictly respecting social distancing measures,” the statement read. These ceremonies will also be closed to the public.

Mayors can also lay wreath at war memorials in their communes, in ceremonies that, again, have to be in line with health rules and be closed to the public.

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