Copyright (c) 1997 - Ingrid A. Rimland
"This summer, in a series of 27 mostly evening-long broadcasts on two channels, one Swiss and one foreign, Swiss television wants to finally get across the way in which Swiss history should be viewed.
The official accompanying letter from the television company states: 'The mythos of neutral Switzerland, prepared to fight and capable of standing up to Nazi terror, has finally been demystified. A critical historiography since the end of the Second World War has reappraised the extent to which the alpine republic felt favorably toward Germany and the Nazis and to what extent it was anti-communist.'
Do you realize this? It was especially distressing that Switzerland was also anti-communist!
And now comes the best part: 'Even the 1st of August, the Swiss national holiday, has been placed against a background of critical historiography.'
We have really come a long way when our national television, in the style of a totalitarian state apparatus, dictates to the people which version of history they should kindly accept. Are the ideological enthusiasts of our monopoly television corporation credible 'reappraisers' of Swiss history?
It is a fact that today we are being threatened, ridiculed and blackmailed by organizations and their representatives in New York.
After my speech on March 1, 1997, today's President of the Swiss-Israeli community also warned me of anti-Semitism. I believe it is extremely necessary to once again establish conceptual clarity. An anti-Semite is a person who despises or persecutes other people because of their Jewish beliefs or because of their Jewish origin. If those who criticize Jewish people or Jewish organizations now become notorious as anti-Semitic, then this is an unacceptable broadening of the definition of 'anti-Semitic'.
I have never criticized people or organizations because they are Jewish. I have done it although they are Jewish.
When Jewish organizations emphatically demand the reappraisal of history, then it applies to all. It is unacceptable that the Swiss-Israeli community still refuses to reveal its records of the past to the general research of today.
In a booklet printed in Germany, a Swiss author by the name of Adolf Muschg expressed the opinion that 'Auschwitz lies not only everywhere but also in Switzerland'. It doesn't take an evil eye to detect 'in an undisguised Auschwitz of yesterday something of the facade of present-day Switzerland which is no longer totally genuine: the geranium embellishment on the window sill, the meticulous and embarrassing cleanliness, which is what matters ...'
One could naturally assume that a professor, who equates a geranium-bedecked Swiss house with the worst death factory of all times, is beyond all help. With his geranium story, he establishes a direct relationship between our country and the worst mass murder in history.
At the same time, the comparison of Swiss cleanliness with the concentration camp of Auschwitz has the effect of unbelievable innocence. It is precisely his young readers, little touched by the burden of history, who will come to the conclusion that if Auschwitz were as bad as the cleanliness and geraniums of a Swiss house, then it was really not such a terrible place to be.
The currying of favor on the part of a Swiss author with our neighbors to the north naturally has a well-founded purpose. In Germany, the sales of his books are many times greater than in a small country like Switzerland. In Germany he needs the publishing house, the critic, the literary prize. But Mr. Muschg has also discovered the Holocaust as a business!
Following the boycott threats from New York, not only the top echelons of bank management lost their nerves but the Federal Council slid into a state of panic as well, which was interpreted as such. It acquiesced to the pressure of foreign Jewish organizations and allowed itself to be blackmailed into payments out of national assets!
That the National Bank, which has been independent until now, should be plundered is frightening from an economic point of view. But it is even more frightening, from the point of view of national policy, that Swiss politicians should have allowed themselves to be blackmailed.
The attempt to extort money or other concessions through threats is unfortunately becoming commonplace in politics and industry. Although he who blackmails is condemnable, he who gives in is even worse. He encourages the extortionist to continue his obviously successful methods and exposes himself to further blackmail.
The Federal Council believed that when it announced to the world the creation of a fund with the splendid title of 'solidarity', the entire world was going to be talking only about Swiss solidarity. But what happened? The entire world has been talking instead about the admission of an appalling sin!
And those groups which have been incessantly attacking us, have reacted immediately with new threats of extortion. If the Swiss electorate does not vote for the solidarity fund, or so goes the saying in America, it would be unforgivable and bring with it serious consequences.
(T)he Federal Council has realized that the people will never vote for a fund based on extortion. The Federal Council is of course shocked and wants to repeal everything with the explanation that the fund has absolutely nothing to do with the Second World War, and nothing to do with the pressure from foreign groups.
With a statement entitled 'Dormant Assists, Explanation of the Federal Council', an attempt is being made to eradicate the proposed use for Holocaust victims, which in turn is leading to a new lack of credibility.
Council has lost its mind, and with its announcement of a solidarity fund has brought our country into a difficult situation. Only the highest instance, namely the people, can disentangle this mindless confusion by saying 'no' to the fund.
Ladies and gentlemen, in contrast to Professor Muschg, I had enough opportunities as a farm hand to use manure and to judge its effect on vegetation. I can tell you that there is no place in nature where life thrives more luxuriantly than there where a substantial muck heap has been spread.
And so I await the muck which the Swiss people have allegedly produced with equanimity. Switzerland will show that it cannot be blackmailed, and the world will acknowledge our 'no' with amazement.
It will realize that it is not the blackmailed politicians who decide but rather an independent and sovereign people who have the last word. Our small state will earn respect - in accordance with Jacob Burckhardt, the great cultural historian who died one hundred years ago:
"The small state exists so that there is a spot on the earth where the largest possible proportion of nationals are citizens in the fullest sense of the word."
Thought for the Day:
"I do not believe that this primal difference between gentile and Jew is reconciliable. You and we may come to an understanding, never to a reconciliation. There will be irritation between us as long as we are in intimate contact."
(Maurice Samuel in "You Gentiles", p. 23)