"Les Justes" de Suisse

Today, Swissinfo has an interesting report about Brother Thomas Fässler, a scholar who, in order to receive his degree in theology, is writing his thesis on the history of the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln, from 1934 to the present.  In the course of his research in the Abbey archives, Brother Fässler has discovered a number of interesting narratives.  While not necessarily germane to the subject of his thesis, he believes that it would be a shame if some of the stories he has found in his research were not told.

One such story is that Fahr Abbey, a Benedictine nunnery that is associated with the monastery at Einsiedeln, sheltered Jewish women refugees during the Holocaust.  To his surprise, he “stumbled upon the story of how Convent Fahr took in refugees during the Second World War – including Jewish women.”

His was not the only surprise.  The Archives of Contemporary History at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ), which has files on Jewish Holocaust refugees who found shelter in Switzerland, has no references whatsoever to such a role for the convent.  Brother Fässler speculates that the nuns, who were in a strictly cloistered order, probably knew nothing of the events happening outside the convent walls.   The refugees lived apart from the nuns and were looked after by members of the Swiss women’s aid service. The convent was responsible for room and board, so the meals came from the convent kitchen.
“The only living witness, 93-year-old Sister Regula Wolf, was the nun who had the most contact with the refugees. She was the liaison between the refugees, the women’s aid service representative and the convent,” explained Fässler.  Most of the time, the refugees were on their own. To keep busy, they occupied themselves with handicrafts.  While the archives show that all refugees had to leave in the spring of 1944 because the convent then opened a school for female farmers, it is unclear what happened to the refugees after that period.

There are many untold stories from the Holocaust Era, where ordinary people performed extraordinary deeds of courage simply because they were the right things to do.  It appears in this case that the religion of the refugees was literally of no importance either to the nuns or to the Swiss women (and men) who aided them, nor were the events that made them refugees.  It was merely the fact that they sought refuge that counted and these people believed that they should assist.  It was as simple, and as profound, as that.

Where I live in Switzerland, France is literally within a 5-10 minute drive.  There are still some concrete bunkers that we see when we make the drive, mere curiosities now, serving as sinister mementos of perhaps the darkest era of recorded history - an era that actually occurred during my own lifetime.  Because of the proximity to France, particularly to Vichy France where the Nazi Regime did not officially occupy the area until August 1944, the Swiss borders were somewhat "porous," and literally provided lifelines to persecuted individuals.  Yes, some were refused entry.  But others were not.

There have been many righteous screeds directed towards Switzerland, towards France - and towards Europe in general - especially from those who were comfortably far from any battlefronts at the time - for unpardonable actions and omissions of Europeans during that horrific era when some six million persons, preponderantly Jewish, died because fascist ideologues and zealots held sway.  There has, however, been too little illustration of the profiles in courage that also existed, even if these profiles in courage were somehow unwitting.  So long as their actions resulted in lives being saved, even if only for a time, their examples should be publicized and honored.  It was the right thing to do then.  It is the right thing to do now.