HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE ACTIVITIES, BY COUNTRY

Summary of Holocaust Remembrance Day 2005
Switzerland

In Switzerland, Holocaust Remembrance Day was officially commemorated for the first time on 27 January 2004, following a decision issued in June 2003 by the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (CDPE).

The CDPE decided that:

Holocaust Remembrance Day shall be observed annually in Swiss schools on 27 January.

Topics shall include: the teaching of remembrance; the prevention of crimes against humanity, including remembrance of the Holocaust; remembrance of genocides that have affected 20th century European history; and reflections on human rights and tolerance, as well as interreligious and intercultural dialogue.

Cantons shall be free to decide for themselves how to shape the commemoration.¹ In order to help teachers improve the organisation of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the CDPE offers online teaching materials and relevant Internet links at www.educa.ch/dyn/1525.htm.

The events held on Holocaust Remembrance Day 2005 in Switzerland can be divided into three categories: 1) annual activities established by institutions before 2004; 2) activities linked to special occasions that took place only in 2005; and 3) activities in Swiss schools organized yearly since the official introduction in 2004 of Holocaust Remembrance Day. However, due to the many schools located in the 26 cantons of Switzerland, which are subject to different educational systems, we can provide only a few highlights from one canton.

The president of the Swiss Confederation, Federal Councillor Samuel Schmid, attended the international commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2005.

Since 1995, the Archive for Contemporary History in Zurich has included a documentation centre on Jewish contemporary history (www.afz.ethz.ch), which has organised events for 27 January for several years now. In 2005, the centre invited four Holocaust survivors to share their stories with four school classes at the secondary level II. One of the presenters was Cioma Schönhaus, the only survivor of his family, who forged some 200 identity papers to help other Jews survive in Berlin until the end of the war; he recently related his experiences in the book Der Passfälscher.² Jerzy Czarnecki shared his Holocaust experiences at the event as well, describing how he survived in Zolkiew (Poland) by assuming a non-Jewish identity.

In 1995, Gábor Hirsch, one of the few survivors of a Jewish family from Hungary—whose tragic destiny is documented in the "Family Room" of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin—established a meeting group of Holocaust survivors in Zurich³. On 27 January of each year, Mr. Hirsch organises a commemoration ceremony. In 2005, he visited Auschwitz-Birkenau with a group of Holocaust survivors.

As for the second category of activities—those unique to 2005—we would like to mention the final debate that took place at the closing of the exhibition Histoire et Mémoire: La Suisse et la Seconde Guerre Mondiale at the Swiss National Museum in Prangins⁴. This exhibition lasted three months and comprised two parts: 1) a display about the findings of the international commission that investigated the attitude of Switzerland towards the Nazi regime⁵ and 2) another display based on the testimonies of more than 500 Swiss citizens about their life during the Second World War. This was the first time that the Swiss National Museum hosted both displays. On Sunday, 30 January 2005, the National Museum organized a public debate in which Professor Jean-François Bergier and the heads of the education departments of two cantonal governments participated⁶. The central question posed was: What remains of the Bergier Report and how do we incorporate the findings into Swiss schoolbooks? Many students attended this debate, as well as the four other debates organized during the exhibition. Teaching materials were developed to supplement the debate and were made available during the run of the exhibition.

It is very difficult to document the events that took place in every single school in Switzerland in observance of the 2005 Holocaust Remembrance Day, as is likely the case with many other countries. There is extensive documentation regarding the activities of the canton of Lucerne, but it is unlikely the remaining 25 cantons organized as many programs. In the summer of 2004, the head of the education department of Lucerne requested each public and private school to observe the Holocaust Remembrance Day the following year. A group of teachers developed specific pedagogical materials titled Holocaust Gedenktag. Erinnern statt vergessen. Handeln statt schweigen.⁷ On 27 January 2005, the film by Andrzej Wajda about Janusz Korczàk, the head of a home for children in the Warsaw ghetto, was shown at the teacher training college of the canton. The same school hosted an exhibition of drawings and the video presentation Es gibt hier keine Kinder: Auschwitz Gross-Rosen Buchenwald⁸ by Thomas Geve, who was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in the summer of 1943. We would also like to mention two lectures given at the University of Lucerne and the play Brundibár by Hans Krása and Adolf Hoffmeister, performed by a school class in a small village after months of rehearsal. Additionally, many other schools of the secondary level II of the canton of Lucerne commemorated the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in their own manner.

In the French part of Switzerland, the CICAD,⁹ an NGO active in the field of Holocaust education and the fight against antisemitism, addressed the heads of the education departments of each canton and encouraged them to provide their schools with a booklet on Auschwitz-Birkenau by the French historian Sabine Zeitoun; more than 15,000 copies of this booklet have been disseminated so far.
François Wisard
Historical Unit of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland

Notes:
¹ Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research (ITF): Holocaust Education in Task Force Member Countries: Switzerland (soon available online at www.holocausttaskforce.org.)
² Scherz Verla, 2004.
³ Kontaktstelle für Überlebende des Holocaust.
⁴ History and Memory: Switzerland and the Second World War.
⁵ Headed by Professor Jean-François Bergier, the Commission published between 2001 and 2002 a series of 25 studies and a final synthesis report in four languages (www.uek.ch). A few weeks ago, the Swiss government decided that most of the exhibition about the Bergier Report will be permanently on display in the main department of the Swiss National Museum (Zurich).
⁶ The debate could not be organised for 27 January.
⁷ Holocaust Memorial Day. Remembering Instead of Forgetting. Acting Instead of Saying Nothing. This documentation is available online at www.holocaust.edulu.ch.
⁸ There Are No Children Here: Auschwitz Gross-Rosen Buchenwald.
⁹ Coordination Intercommunautaire contre l'Antisémitisme et la Diffamation. www.cicad.ch.