840.48 Refugees/3070: Telegram
The Minister in Switzerland (Harrison) to the Secretary of State
[Received 4:07 p.m.]
4078. As a result of anti-Jewish measures in France and German occupied countries and the expected introduction of compulsory military service in Alsace-Lorraine, there was a new wave of refugees seeking entrance into Switzerland without visas in early August. The federal police authorities reportedly determined not to return those escaping military service but issued orders to cantonal police and border guards to exert greater caution in permitting the entry of refugees who appeared to be fleeing economic and racial disabilities rather than political persecution. Several refugees out of the 300 who reported to the police after gaining entrance were sent back to the country of departure and plans were drawn up at Bern to deport the so-called non-political refugees who entered the country illegally after August 13. These police measures and plans were unfavorably received by a large and well organized section of the Swiss population and there was a storm of disapproval in the press and at public meetings by the church both Catholic and Protestant, educational and intellectual circles, liberal labor and political groups, refugee aid societies and by cantonal officials in Zurich, Basle and elsewhere on the grounds that they violated the basic principles of asylum maintained for generations by the Swiss people.
The federal authorities declared that only political refugees were entitled to asylum and that these measures were envisaged solely for foreigners in other categories. The chief of Federal Justice and Police Department insisted that thus to prevent refugees from leaving Belgium and the Netherlands was far less cruel than to refuse them admittance at the border. He indicated that “a new type of refugee might arise which in Swiss eyes would be still more worthy of asylum”, and in comparing the possibilities of the United States receiving refugees with those of Switzerland he noted that only 30 of 5,200 refugees in Switzerland had left for America in 1942. He stated that since Switzerland can only admit refugees who are able to leave for another country “we cannot turn our country into a sponge for Europe and take in for example 80 or 90 per cent of the Jewish refugees.”
The pressure of public opinion with the support of officials in several of the important cantons (northern cantons favor entrance of refugees, French cantons support the federal police and the eastern cantons demand exclusion and even expulsion of certain refugees) has forced the federal authorities to change their original plans for the deportation of illegal immigrants and they now agree that only those refugees [Page 470] will be expelled who are found after careful investigation to be personally urged on serious grounds. However, it appears that the federal authorities are tightening up the border control with a view to stopping illegal passage of the frontier of foreigners without valid visas. Several meetings between the federal and cantonal police officials have taken place and it is stated that military units have been installed along the French border where the majority of Jewish refugees have been crossing. In this way the indignation of the Swiss public and the deportation of refugees who succeeded in entering the country will in the future be avoided by preventing entrance.
The pressure against Jews in France, Belgium and the Netherlands is expected to continue and interested political and racial circles in Switzerland are deeply concerned that those succeeding in reaching the Swiss frontier will not be admitted and thus suffer transportation by the Nazis to occupied Russia. These groups are extremely anxious that the United Nations powers assume a helpful attitude in this matter with a view to facilitating the entry of such refugees into Switzerland and their eventual emigration overseas. It appears settled at this time that the federal authorities are disinclined to admit further racial and economic refugees unless some assurances are obtained that if once admitted Switzerland will be assisted in maintaining them and in arranging without undue delay their emigration elsewhere. In this regard sympathetic opinion in Switzerland holds that the United Nations are obligated towards this category of refugees on the grounds that publicity over the radio and in the press has encouraged many of them to believe that special interest and understanding exists for them.