Switzerland, a land of asylum? The words of witnesses As part of Switzerland’s chairmanship 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, at the age of 8, André was put in a convoy of children to Switzerland by the Zionist youth movement led locally by Jacques Wajntrob, who was arrested two days later and deported. The 20 children pass safely through Switzerland where André will stay with the Bosshard family.

Isidore Jacubowiez

Until May 1944, Isidore was a schoolboy and lived under his real name in Paris. So housed at a neighbor of his parents (his mother is deported in 1943 and his father hides), he is transported to Lyon, where a network takes care of making him win Switzerland. He arrives on May 25, by a convoy of 11 children aged 7 to 18 years organized by a section presented under the name «Sisters of the Holy Family».

Edmond Richemond

In 1942, Edmond Richemond was 13 years old when his mother was arrested during a raid on the Vél'd'Hiv. Managed to escape, he is taken by neighbors and later entrusted to the School Colony and the EEIF who take him to Switzerland. Refugee in Geneva, he is transferred to the triage centre of Cropettes and then to the camps of Charmilles, Varembé and Champel. Until the end of the war, he worked in a luxury hotel in Crans-Montana. He will find his brother and father, both survivors of Auschwitz.

Tasma-Wielblad Rosette

In July 1942, Rosette Tasma-Wielblad and her family escaped the Vél'd'Hiv raid by hiding at a neighbour’s house. She is placed with her sister in a nanny’s home. His parents are 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 led by Marianne Cohn to a smuggler at the Swiss border. She is then picked up by a family in Geneva.

Sabine Sonabend

The Sonabend family attempts to move to Switzerland in August 1942. They are sent back to France by Switzerland. Arrested by a German patrol, the parents are deported. In 1997, invoking the Liability Act, Charles Sonabend filed a complaint with the Federal Council and claimed compensation for moral damage from the Confederation. His sister, Sabine, filed a similar application in 1999.

followed by the projection of

Closed Country by Kaspar Kasics and Stefan Mächler

The Sonabend and Popowski family’s fates crossed. Fritz Straub is a guard at the border post of Boncourt where the Sonabend family was turned away on 17 August 1942. She is forced to live in a convent before being expelled.Fritz Straub and the nuns follow the orders of police chief Heinrich Rothmund. A few days earlier, on August 8, 1942, Heinrich Rothmund had personally agreed to the entry of the Popowski family into Switzerland.