Word: switzerland
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Your report about Switzerland and the part it played with Holocaust gold shows us Swiss citizens that we are not as special as we sometimes believe, nor are we better than the rest of the world. We are responsible for our share of the guilt and we must carry it. But if any person is without sin, let him throw the first stone. Fifty years after the end of the war, the veil of secrecy is finally being lifted. And it is not only the Swiss who are looking for fame, power and money. LOUIS NIEDERER Winterthur, Switzerland...
...years ago still seems to be the exception for human judgment. The Swiss are the same human beings as the Germans, the French or the Americans. They are not angels, but they are not devils either. Maybe everyone should start to think in shades of gray. STEPHAN LOEB Binningen, Switzerland...
During the war, there were also ordinary, humanely acting Swiss citizens. I was one of 28,000 Jewish refugees saved in Switzerland, although not through any act of mercy of Swiss government policies. My family and I started our flight from Nazi-occupied Amsterdam in July 1942. We traveled through the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Vichy France and the Alps. One September noon, not knowing that Swiss border guards were on watch with binoculars to catch border-crossing refugees, we tumbled down into Switzerland. Right there, a mountain-stalking Swiss family from Champery stumbled onto us. They told us about...
...real issue is broader than blocked Jewish assets and laundered money. It is the conflict between neutrality and moral integrity. My family was German, anti-Nazi and somewhat linked to the assassination attempt on Hitler. In July 1944 they had no other choice than to flee to Switzerland and seek refuge with relatives. Big surprise: the Swiss authorities accepted the four children in the family but turned back the five adults, who were caught, delivered to the Gestapo and imprisoned. When the U.S. Army closed in on Germany, my father succeeded in escaping, but other family members, along with other...
...BERN, Switzerland: In a proposal that should please Jewish advocates without satisfying them, Swiss president Arnold Koller asked Parliament to establish a $5 billion fund to aid, among others, victims of the Holocaust and their families. The Swiss Foundation for Solidarity, to be set up in the coming year, would use proceeds from Swiss gold reserves that could produce several hundred million dollars a year, all while avoiding the use of Swiss taxpayers' money, an idea that is anathema to many conservatives. But Koller was careful to characterize the fund as a broad humanitarian measure--not a reparation. The money...