Woman Seeks Swiss Pardon for Aiding Jews

[DuctapeFatwa]

A woman who was punished by the Swiss government for smuggling Jewish refugees into the country during World War II became the first person to seek a pardon under a new law that seeks to make amends for the neutral country's refusal to help Jews escape the Nazis.

Aimee Stitelmann helped 15 refugees cross the border from France to Switzerland between 1942 and 1945, when she was a teenager. She was caught in 1945, convicted of violating Switzerland's border laws and sentenced to 15 days in prison.

Stitelmann, 79, told reporters Tuesday that she was seeking the pardon to draw attention to "the injustice of being punished for sheltering illegal immigrants."

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040113_1021.html

[aquart]

1. One day in jail for each life saved.

Not exactly punitive, I notice.

[Voice_of_Europe]

8. It's rather symbolic

Just a thought:
Nowadays Europe and also Switzerland still have an "asylum problem".
I admit it's not a direct neighbour country at war but we still get hundreds of refugees per day claiming their life is threatened in their home country. But many only come for the money and the opportunity to live in a western country.
Hard to distinguish those...

And you get punished much worse if you help them across the border.

The US also has a similar problem on their Mexico border with the difference illegal immigrants come mainly for the money... but also Mexico has its little war with some political groups.

Anyway...
My point is that it's easy to judge something that happened 50 years back.
Would the US open its borders to all Mexicans in case there was a war in mexico?

So I think smuggling in Jew into Switzerland WAS A CRIME at that time.
And 15 days prison was rather symbolic...and she wasn't adult at the time.

Off course I share most peoples opinion that many lives could have been saved if Switzerland had let them all in.

But as a small country of 4 million people you don't piss off the big neighbor country of 50+ million by refugeeing their most hated social group... that would really take big guts!! And with all countries around Switzerland fallen victim to nazi Germany Switzerland could not afford having such guts!

Difficult to judge something in the past...

What would I do?
I hope I would have the courage to do what this adolescent girl did.
Ask yourselves, would you have the courage to knowingly commit a crime and face the consequences to smuggle somebody across the US border?

Or asked otherwise:
Did you defend the poor nerd from the bully?
Or did you turn away and hope you're not next..?

[denverbill]

2. A pardon? They should give her a friggin medal.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

3. You have to understand...

When a country declares itself 100% neutral, it can't have its citizens taking action, one way or another, to change the status of its neutrality. Otherwise, it will find itself knee deep in a war for which it is woefully unprepared, all because of a perceived allegiance.

You're right, she deserves a medal, but you have to see where the government is coming from. It has to keep the best interests of its own citizens in mind.

[DuctapeFatwa]

4. helping people escape from shit regimes is in the best interests of

the citizens of any country.

It won't be long before you will have the opportunity to discover what you will do when it is your turn to measure your basement, or decide which of your neighbors may hide you in theirs, depending...

[demdave]

5. Especially when it is busy hiding all that stolen Holocaust gold.

But the Swiss come in for heavy criticism for indifference to the transfer by the Nazis of $400 million ($4 billion in today's dollars) to the Swiss National Bank. That figure does not account for individual losses suffered by Holocaust victims but that never made it into official channels.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9705/06/nazi.gold/


In November 2000, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman approved a plan to distribute a $1.25 billion settlement of litigation by Holocaust survivors against Swiss banks. The distribution plan set aside $800 million for claimants who can prove that their families deposited money in Swiss banks to hide it from the Nazis and never got it back. The remaining $450 million was set aside for refugees who were denied entrance to or expelled from Switzerland, slave laborers forced to work for companies with Swiss accounts, and victims whose belongings were plundered by the Nazis and apparently ended up in Switzerland.

http://www.swissbankclaims.com/

[auburnblu]

7. I understand that the Swiss are greedy

We are neutral, we are superior. Please. All that country thinks about is themselves. Drug lords, send us your money, send it on over.

[Voice_of_Europe]

9. ^_^

Nice set of prejudices you got there...

And we all have a cow at home. And produce pocket knives. And cheese..

Or did you mean Sweden anyway?...

^_^


Switzerland is a very small country. Not much people. Not much army. Not meddling in wars by declaring neutrality protected Switzerland for a very long time.

As a very small country you have to do different politics than as a continent spanning country. You have to ensure that you have friends around.
It's sometimes very difficult to bring this point of view closer to somebody who grew up in a country armed to the teeth and used to getting whatever they want... (some prejudice of my own might be allowed here)

[seventhson]

6. Secret American Operation that saved 2000 Refugees from Hitler

Interesting story which I am doing research on for my book.

http://www.chambon.org/fry.htm

I would love your comments.

It puts the Bush-Nazi story into a whole new perspective.

We May have to engage in the same type of operation to get out of the USA if the Forth Reich steals election 2004.

It is ggod to know about such things and how they collaborated with the underground.