Opinion piece | Any Swiss memorial to Nazi victims needs to be more than just a physical landmark

At least 408 Swiss citizens were deported to concentration camps during the Second World War. We can add to this number at least 334 men, women and adolescents who were born and grew up in Switzerland, spoke dialect in many cases, but never held Swiss citizenship. Out of these 742 in total, 468 never came back.

In many, but not all, of these cases, Switzerland acted just as disgracefully as it did towards Anna Böhringer. Back then, the authorities regarded Jews, leftists, homosexuals, resistance fighters, disabled people, and social dropouts as second-class citizens not worth defending. Switzerland was happy to wash its hands of such elements. Tellingly, these were the same minorities that the Nazis wanted to exterminate.

Remembrance is important, but a memorial is worthless if we as a society fail to take a serious look at these past injustices and learn from them. Until recently, no other country in Western Europe had shown quite the same indifference as Switzerland towards its own Nazi victims – they were simply forgotten.

Change began last year, when Simonetta Sommaruga became the first President of the Swiss Confederation to acknowledge the suffering of Swiss who were persecuted. Activists in Zurich have since teamed up to install commemorative “Stolpersteine” (biographic plaques) in front of the former homes of Nazi victims. Seven of these stones have been embedded into the pavement to date. More are to follow in Basel, Berne and Winterthur. Teachers have been proactive in addressing the topic in schools, while the stories of Swiss Nazi victims have also been the subject of master’s theses.

The groundwork for a national memorial (including an information centre) has been laid. It is now up to us to ensure that this commemorative site makes a difference. We owe it to Anna Böhringer and all the other victims.

See also: Guest article | Switzerland set to have its own official Holocaust memorial