Switzerland, a land of asylum? The word of the witnesses As part of Switzerland’s presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance

André Panczer

Until 1942, André and his parents lived in Paris. They then retreated to Prayssac (Lot), then to Nice, after a stay in the "Jewish colony" of Megève (Haute-Savoie). On 21 September 1943, when he was 8 years old, André was put in a convoy of children to Switzerland by the local Zionist youth movement led by Jacques Wajntrob, who was arrested two days later and deported. The 20 children pass unhindered in Switzerland where André will stay in the Bosshard family.

Isidore Jacubowiez

Until May 1944, Isidore was a schoolboy and lived under his real name in Paris. Then hosted by a neighbor of his parents (his mother is deported in 1943 and his father hides), he is conveyed to Lyon, where a network takes care of making him go to Switzerland. He arrived there on May 25, by a convoy of 11 children aged 7 to 18 organized by a network presented under the name "Les sœurs de la Sainte-Famille".

Edmond Richemond

In 1942, Edmond Richemond was 13 years old when his mother was arrested during the roundup of the Vél’d'Hiv. Managed to escape, he was taken in by neighbors and later entrusted to the school colony and the EEIF who took him to Switzerland. Refugee in Geneva, he was transferred to the Cropettes sorting centre then to the Charmilles, Varembé and Champel camps. Until the end of the war, he worked in a luxury hotel in Crans-Montana. He will be reunited with his brother and father, both of whom were survivors of Auschwitz.

Tasma-Wielblad Rosette

In July 1942, Rosette Tasma-Wielblad and her family escaped the Vél’d'Hiv roundup by hiding at a neighbor’s house. She is placed with her sister in a nanny. His parents were arrested in November 1943 and deported to Auschwitz a few days before his 9th birthday. Rosette is hiding with her aunt, uncle and cousins in Saint-Pierrede-Chartreuse near Grenoble. She is part of a convoy taken by Marianne Cohn to a smuggler on the Swiss border. She is then taken in by a family in Geneva.

Sabine Sonabend

The Sonabend family tried to cross into Switzerland in August 1942, but were sent back to France by Switzerland. Arrested by a German patrol, the parents are deported. In 1997, invoking the law on liability, Charles Sonabend filed a complaint with the Federal Council and demanded compensation from the Confederation for moral injury. His sister, Sabine, submitted a similar request in 1999.

followed by the projection of

Closed Country by Kaspar Kasics and Stefan Mächler

Crossed destinies of the Sonabend and Popowski families. Fritz Straub is a guard at the Boncourt border post where the Sonabend family was turned back on 17 August 1942. She is forced to reside in a convent before being expelled. Fritz Straub and the nuns follow the orders of police chief Heinrich Rothmund to the letter. A few days earlier, on 8 August 1942, Heinrich Rothmund had personally given his approval for the entry of the Popowski family into Switzerland.